


can you hear me?

by bstarship



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Not Spider-Man: Far From Home Compliant, Peter Parker Feels, Peter Parker Has Anxiety, Peter Parker Has Panic Attacks, Peter Parker Misses Tony Stark, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker is a Mess, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Precious Peter Parker, Suspense, Tony Stark Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:20:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 43,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23308246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bstarship/pseuds/bstarship
Summary: Peter has reason to believe that Tony Stark is still alive. A few reasons, actually.And then the reasons become too much to ignore.
Relationships: Happy Hogan & Peter Parker, James "Bucky" Barnes & Peter Parker, Karen (Spider-Man: Homecoming) & Peter Parker, May Parker (Spider-Man) & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Peter Parker & Pepper Potts, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 287
Kudos: 496





	1. the voicemail

**Author's Note:**

> so i have quite a bit of this already planned out, so i have an idea of where it's going which is nice. i got excited to start this, so hopefully, my motivation stays ! lol

It starts with a voicemail.

Peter is in the car with May on a cold Monday in early January. For the past few hours––and in between bathroom breaks––they’ve been singing their hearts out to a playlist she had burned a few years ago, although her singing is much more theatrical and amplified than his. He keeps his phone on silent in the cupholder beside him. They’ve been on the road for a while now, following the Garden State Parkway until they will eventually reenter New York through Staten Island. When Peter’s behind the wheel, the music suddenly comes off. It helps him focus, and May understands, but she can’t last more than thirty minutes in complete silence. And he understands.

Her sister owns a home off of Cape May, a tiny little thing that sits a half-mile from the Atlantic. The water is too cold for swimming these days anyway, but Peter was grateful to have a few days away from home. He was grateful to have an escape from the responsibilities he made for himself. Away from swinging and saving lives and hardly having a grasp on reality. Nothing amounts to crumbling into dust as he did so many years ago. But it still feels like yesterday. Nothing amounts to floating away with the wind on some foreign planet that was eight degrees off of its axis. Nothing amounts to waking up a second later, and suddenly _it’s been five years, kid, c’mon, get up––Thanos is back again_ , and Peter is forced to finally activate instant kill. He’s forced to watch his mentor die right before his eyes.

A few days away from Queens seemed like a dream. Peter was excited. But now he’s dreading coming back home.

He tries to let the feelings go as May’s old favorite songs blare through the crackling speakers. He’s happy, he _should_ be happy. There are no potential threats, nothing to look over his shoulder for, and he has his family and friends. He has May, and she’s been keeping him sane.

“Okay, after this exit, I’m gonna stop for gas,” she says, turning down the volume while keeping her eyes on the road. “Pull up maps. See if you can find me somewhere that won’t make me wanna buy out their hand sanitizers.”

Peter laughs. It feels good to laugh. Few people these days are good at making him laugh, and May has them all beat. He pulls his phone out from the cupholder.

“Oh, shit, _shit_ ––” May twists the steering wheel and crosses over two lanes of traffic.

“What are you––”

“ _Shh_.”

A few cars honk, but there’s hardly a scratch as she settles into the far left lane and lets out a deep sigh. The lane begins to separate from the rest of the highway.

Peter continues to look at her with an eyebrow raised.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she says, but soon, she begins to laugh. “I’m _sorry!_ ”

“We could have died,” Peter states. He can still hear his heartbeat in his ears.

“We didn’t!” she exclaims. “Besides, it’s a service area. There should be a gas station here. It’s fine.”

Peter rests back into the passenger seat. “How do you know that? You really tried to kill us because you thought a gas station would be over here? You’re insane.”

“Relax,” May mumbles. “I saw a sign for a Sunoco like two seconds ago. Cool your boots.”

Peter shakes his head, muttering out a quiet, “ _crazy_ ” under his breath as he unlocks his phone to check for unread messages. There are a few from Ned, something about a shit ton of new comics being released online for free for a limited time only. There’s an email from a teacher apologizing for sending them a link that will steal their identity, spend all of their money, and destroy their computers if opened. And, there’s a missed call. Peter doesn’t think much about it––most calls nowadays are machines and scams anyway, yet somehow, the more he avoids them, the more they call.

But this one left a voicemail. Machines don’t do that.

He tries to play it as May sings along to the Dixie Chicks, but all he can hear is static and some other noise in the background. Instead of deleting it, he replays the message. It’s thirty seconds long. No one accidentally leaves a thirty-second long voicemail.

“May, sorry, hold on,” Peter says, reaching over to pause the music. She looks offended as he does so, but she doesn’t say anything as he raises his phone to his ear. He replays the message once again.

The static is loud and sharp, like someone had rubbed a bag full of chips up against the microphone and proceeded to blow crumbs on it. It seems like that’s all the message is, but ten seconds in, Peter begins to hear something anyone with normal hearing might not. He thinks it’s a voice. It’s distant, and the more he hears it, the more it sounds like someone is shouting. The message ends, so he replays it one more time.

This time, he expects the voice. He tries to concentrate on the words it says and the inflections in its tone. He can’t make out much of anything at all. His brain convinces him that, _whoever the person is_ , is speaking to him. And they’re afraid of something. They sound panicked. They sound like they’re calling to someone. Calling _for_ someone.

Peter has to replay the message four more times.

The next time, he starts to think he might be hearing his own name. He can hear the subtle pop of a P. They’re yelling for him. They’re yelling his name. His heartbeat picks up as his nerves start to rise, and May keeps looking over at him with a worried expression. Eventually, she finds a vacant parking spot to pull into.

The time after that, Peter has drowned out the static and focused solely on the person in the background. He still can’t hear the words they’re saying, but he can hear his name loud and clear now. They’re saying his name––they have to be saying his name. Why did they call him? _Who_ called him? 

During the last two listens, he feels a bit sick to his stomach. He grips the side of his seat, and he’s sure his knuckles have turned white while he quickly evens out his breaths. He’s lightheaded, yet he can still hear the message and the voice as if the person is right in the car with him. It’s Tony. _It’s Tony_. It sounds too much like Tony for it _not_ to be Tony. Peter wants to debunk it with one last listen, but he can’t. He can’t unhear it––he won’t be able to.

A teardrop slips down Peter’s cheek, and he sniffs to cover up a whimper.

“Peter?” May asks. He forgot she was sitting there.

He lets his phone fall onto his lap. “Hm?”

“What’s wrong?” She unbuckles her seatbelt so she can easily reach across and put a hand on his shoulder. “Are you okay? Who was that?”

“I, um––” Peter sniffs again. “I-I don’t––can you listen to it? I need you to listen to it.” He hands the phone over to her, his fingers a bit shaky during the exchange, and she takes it hesitantly. “It’s weird. It’s gonna sound weird, I know. But, just––” He lets out a breath. “Listen to it a few times. Tell me what you hear.”

And she does so. He watches every shift in emotion, from confusion to terror back to confusion again. For a moment, he thinks he sees realization come over her, but it quickly fades back into uncertainty again. He probably looked the same. She pulls the phone away after the third listen.

“I kept hearing something in the background,” she says. Her voice trembles as she speaks.

Peter nods. “Someone talking.”

“Yeah.”

“Saying my name.” He bites his lips. “Kind of _screaming_ it actually.”

May nods, too. “Y-yeah. Peter, what is––”

“Keep listening,” he says eagerly. “Does it sound like anyone to you?”

She listens two more times. The lines in her forehead seem to deepen by the last listen, and Peter thinks she might pop a few blood vessels in her eyes from how wide they’ve gotten. He can feel the fear radiating off of her.

Eventually, she hands the phone back over slowly. “Peter.”

“Please tell me you heard him, too.”

Her eyes glaze over, and she pulls her lips into a deep frown. “Yes,” she says slowly. “Yes. I heard him.”

The ride home after that is fairly silent. May keeps her playlist on a low volume, but she doesn’t sing along. Peter doesn’t offer to drive. He stares out the window and tries to keep his emotions in check, but he’s failing. They’re pulling at his heart, filling his chest with a heavy weight while his brain crowds with thoughts and questions. It was a prank. It had to be a prank.

And while Peter can’t trust his own instincts anymore, a part of him knows it’s not a prank. No one has pranked him like that, nor does he think anyone would, especially not to that caliber. Not even Flash would think of something that chilling and cruel.

At one point, when May isn’t looking, Peter tries calling the number back. The call drops after the first ring; it doesn’t even go to voicemail. When he tries again, he gets an automated message informing him that the line has been disconnected. Peter feels woozy now, and he can’t think of anything worse than puking all over his pants in May’s banged-up 2006 Sedan. He can’t think of anything worse than the voicemail burned into his brain.

It’s dark out by the time they drive into Brooklyn. Peter spends the remainder of the ride with his knuckles pressed into his cheek. He’s too busy thinking about the voicemail, thinking about everything Tony hasever said to him in the past… thinking about what would happen if he suddenly opened up the door and jumped out onto the road. Peter can practically hear May’s shrieks in his head as he mentally tumbles away.

He considers suiting up once they get home. It might take the sting away, he thinks. It always makes him feel a little bit more alive when he’s out there––it makes him feel like he can be someone else. But he doesn’t think he has the capability of fighting crime right now. He doesn’t think he can take on a few guys with knives; his brain is a little too loud for his liking, and distraction only leads to injuries. All he wants to do is feel like the life he’s living isn’t his own.

May parks the car a block away from their building. Peter hadn’t even realized they entered Queens. She turns off the engine, and as he reaches to unbuckle his seatbelt, she utters his name. And with how she said it, he knows what’s coming next.

“We should talk about it,” she tells him. Her eyes are soft, and he can imagine the warmth of the hug she’ll give him once they get upstairs. “There’s… a lot to unpack. I mean, we’ve been driving for two and a half hours, and neither of us has said anything. We’ve gotta talk about it.”

Peter shakes his head, stuffing his hands into his sleeves as he pulls his lower lip between his teeth. He wants to talk about it, _he does_ , but he keeps his feelings bottled up for a reason. And it’s not healthy, of course. He’s just afraid of what will happen if that bottle uncaps.

“Peter,” May breathes out. She places a hand over his. “That voicemail––”

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” he mutters. There’s ice in his tone. He closes his eyes, exhales, and calmly says, “at least, not right now.”

May nods. She can handle that. She can deal with ‘not right now’. That means there will be a time when he does talk about it, and she will be ready for the moment that it happens.

Peter feels incredibly small. He feels pathetic, and he knows he doesn’t have to. The voicemail was cryptic––it was terrifying, and it unleashed everything he has been repressing for the past few months. Everything is still a bit too fresh. So, he hugs his arms tight and lets May look at him like he will break if she touches him. She doesn’t speak another word.

After dinner, he thinks he might be sick. Like, actually sick. His forehead feels warm, and he knows his shivers aren’t being caused by the brisk temperature outside. Peter hasn’t felt sick like this since before the bite many years back––he didn’t think he _could_ feel like this. To his understanding, it wasn’t possible. He lies in bed, clutching his forehead as he listens to the sound of his new suit charging in the corner.

He hasn’t taken the old suit out in a while. Nothing has happened since he came back in October, but somehow, it feels like too much has happened; he can’t seem to find enough hours in his day anymore. The attachment he had to the old suit isn’t the same one he has now. It used to feel like an honor, but now it’s nothing more than a reminder. Nothing more than a piece of clothing with an exhausted look.

It’s hanging in his closet when he turns over in bed to look at it. It sits there like a shrine. It dangles like a carved pelt, lifeless and mocking him for its neglect.

As Peter sits up, the blood rushes to his head, and he waits for the dark in his vision to pass. A part of him hopes the suit is gone when his sight comes back. But it’s there. Red and blue, and _God_ , it still smells like that stupid planet––he can’t stomach the thought of wearing either suit again. They still smell like dirt. They still smell like blood, sweat, and any repulsive scent that makes acid climb up to his throat.

He rises to his feet, slowly dragging them over to the closet before taking a deep breath in. _It’s not about the suit. It’s about the voicemail._ He reaches for the mask, settles back into bed, and drags the material over his head. The interface comes to life.

 _“Hello, Peter,”_ says Karen.

The corners of his lips turn up slightly.

 _“It’s been a while,”_ she continues, _“how have you been?”_

The small smile falters. “I’ve been okay,” he whispers, voice cracking. He clears his throat. “Um, Karen?”

“ _Yes, Peter?”_

“Are you able to access stuff on my phone?” he asks her. He keeps his hands clasped together on his stomach while he stares up at the ceiling.

 _“I’m only able to access your calls and messages,”_ replies the AI. _“Is there something you’re looking for in particular?”_

Peter shuts his eyes. She can give him the truth. She can help him figure this whole thing out. “Yeah,” he says. “Um, I got this voicemail today––it’s the most recent––and it kinda scared me. But I wanna know more about it.”

_“I can help with that.”_

“Would you be able to trace it for me?” he asks. “It didn’t have a location or anything. And then the phone was disconnected.”

_“Sure thing, Peter. This will only take a moment.”_

Through his heads-up display, the soundwaves of the voicemail are illuminated. It’s full of jagged lines and harsh pulses. Beside it, a map of the world rapidly zooms in, eventually landing over the eastern states of North America, but then the movements stop.

 _“I can’t seem to trace it beyond a certain perimeter,”_ Karen tells him.

Peter furrows his brows together and scratches at his jaw through the mask. “I guess that makes sense. Would you be able to remove the static and enhance the audio of the guy talking? It sounds weird––you’re gonna think I’m crazy for even _saying_ it, but––”

_“Why would I think you’re crazy?”_

He sighs. “Doesn’t matter.”

 _“I can try my best to enhance the speaker, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to remove all of the static,”_ she says. _“There are many different colors of noise interfering, and I can only remove what I can identify.”_

“That’s better than nothin’, I guess,” Peter mutters, pulling up the mask so it rests just under his nose. He needs to breathe. Even though lungs don’t bother him like they used to, sometimes he still thinks that they will. Sometimes he still remembers what it was like to not have powers.

He’s dreading the results as the minutes pass by. He hasn’t listened to the voicemail since earlier in the afternoon––he’s almost forgotten how it made him feel at the time. Now, there’s a residual stain of its effects that leaves his head hurting. He feels sad. He feels sick. He feels like he’s missing something.

He feels like the voicemail is a sign.

He doesn’t know why or what for. He doesn’t care. He just knows.

 _“Would you like me to play the edited audio?”_ Karen asks all of a sudden.

Peter’s heart leaps. “Y-yeah. Yes. Loud. I wanna hear it loud.”

The static still hurts. It still overpowers the voice. But Peter feels his stomach drop when he _does_ hear the voice. He can hear his name. There’s no doubt, not a single one, that his name is being said. Being _screamed_. It makes the ceiling spin as the urgency behind the voice filters in. He wants to cry. He wants to cry because if it _is_ Tony––somehow, some chance––then there’s pain behind his screams. There’s pain behind Peter’s name. He’s never heard Tony in so much pain before.

It’s not Tony. It can’t be.

 _“Can you hear me?”_ the voice calls.

Peter sits up in bed. “What the hell was that?” he says aloud––the audio hasn’t ended yet. “Back up. Karen. Rewind it a few seconds.”

She goes back to fifteen seconds in. At seventeen seconds, Peter hears it again.

_“Can you hear me?”_

He’s breathing hard and fast, and he doesn’t realize until it’s too late. Peter tears the mask off of his head and swings his feet over the edge of his bed. His chest rises and falls at a rapid pace, and his fingers dig into his mattress until his nails push back against his skin. _Holy shit. Holy shit._ He’s unsteady, limbs falling numb while his torso sways and his vision spots.

He can still hear it in his head. It’s ringing. Pounding. It’s an itch he can’t scratch. It’s stuck in his brain like an earworm he’s had for days. He pounds at his temple with the heel of his palm as a few tears fall down his cheeks.

For a few minutes, Peter sits there, leaning over his knees and calming down his breaths. He feels dizzy and ill, but the numbness has faded. His vision is back to normal, so he throws his head back against the comforter and reaches for the mask. He doesn’t hesitate to tug it back on.

 _“Are you all right, Peter?”_ Karen asks right away. _“You started to exhibit signs of a panic attack before you took off your mask. It appears like you’ve been able to resolve it.”_

He fiddles with the sleeves of his sweater. “I’m fine,” he says. Tears prick at his eyes. “I’m fine. I just–– _holy shit_. I wasn’t expecting t’hear that. S’all.” He sniffs, and the sensation to cry is gone. “Um, Karen? I need to ask you another favor.”

_“Of course. What do you need?”_

“C-could you run a vocal recognition for me?” His voice wavers as he speaks. “I think––well, I’m just––I don’t know. I don’t know what to think. I just need numbers. I need statistics. I don’t think I can trust my own brain right now.”

And, truth be told, Peter has felt that way for longer than he’s realized. He sees Tony in everything. He sees Tony in his suit. He sees him in every graffitied memorial painted on brick, in the picture frame sitting beside his bed, in May’s hugs, in Pepper’s warmth, in Morgan’s laughter, and in Happy’s rare smiles. It doesn’t come as a surprise to Peter that he might start hearing Tony in everything, too.

 _“I will do my very best, Peter,”_ says Karen. _“With all of the interference, I can’t promise it will be accurate. What would you like me to compare the audio file to?”_

Peter shrugs to himself. “Try the baby monitor, I guess. He would call me sometimes while I was in the suit.”

He waits, unmoving while he watches the light show in his interface. He isn’t sure what any of the information means. He was always too afraid to ask. And now, he can’t ask. The pink-ish reds and teal-ish blues continue to dance around his vision until all motions cease. Peter holds his breath.

 _“I’ve completed the analysis,”_ Karen says.

“And?”

 _“Between the voicemail and all known recordings of Tony Stark through the Baby Monitor Protocol,”_ she begins, _“I was able to deduct a few tonal inflections that––”_

“The numbers, Karen,” Peter interjects. “I just wanna hear the numbers. Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

_“That’s okay, Peter. I forgive you.”_

He smiles weakly. And then the smile soon falls.

_“The voice in the message on your phone has come back as a 36% match to Tony Stark’s.”_


	2. the conversation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter tells Happy about the voicemail.

It continues with a phone call to Happy.

Peter puts on the suit for the first time a long while. It’s supposed to fit perfectly - no matter what, but somehow, it feels looser than it used to. It feels like it belongs to someone else. When he takes it outside, he can’t bring it upon himself to go very far. He stands on his fire escape and listens for sirens, hopeful that the excitement he used to feel will ignite again and lead him elsewhere. Instead, he’s caught up in a conversation from down the street. He can hear the strangers talk about their dogs, their favorite sports, and how to properly put toilet paper on the roll. The clear answer is over, not under. He can hear them like they’re speaking right to him. Peter stands there on his fire escape for an hour just _listening_.

He swings to feel calm. And it works. He comfortably swings all the way to Brooklyn with enough web fluid to get him home, but before he can leave, he takes on his first act of the night. Peter stops a mugging with his heartbeat pounding in his ears. Afterward, he lies down on a rooftop and stares up at the stars. There aren’t many stars to see when one lives in New York, but he counts whatever stars he can find. He counts a hundred and eighty-four.

“What’s your favorite constellation, Karen?” he asks, settling into the gravel rooftop while a harsh chill rushes through him. He’s been cold for the past few hours, but he doesn’t want to go home. Not yet.

_“I’m not sure, Peter, why don’t you pick one for me?”_

“Everyone always says Orion,” he explains to her. “I don’t know why they say Orion. It’s great and all, but who cares? Y’know? Who cares about Orion and his stupid belt.”

_“Sounds to me like you have a personal issue with Orion, then.”_

Peter laughs lightly, but it settles back into his chest. “I like Taurus. It’s just as big and cool as Orion, but no one talks about it. And I like Perseus, too. It’s funny lookin’. I always thought it looked like a person after getting hit by a car. It’s got one arm out and one foot in, all bent and broken. I think Perseus is my favorite.”

_“It sounds like a good favorite,”_ Karen says. _“It’ll be mine, too.”_

He lifts his mask a little and exhales slowly, watching as his breath freezes into the air in tiny crystals. He misses summer––it’s been so long since he’s experienced it. He misses the warmth and the Long Island beaches. He misses when he and Ben would spend the entire day raiding the Coney Island arcade until they came home with their arms full of stuffed animals. May would send them out the next morning to donate half of what they won. Peter misses simplicity. He misses when things were slow. Now, everything is too fast for him to keep up with.

He wishes he could press pause for a little while. He wishes he could stay up on that rooftop and not worry about what the next day would bring. He can’t go home. He can’t bring himself to peel off the suit - even though it’s just a suit and that’s all it will ever be. It will never be more than a part of him––it’s _not_ him. But that’s not why Peter doesn’t want to take it off. It because it’s Tony. The suit, and everything it is, is Tony. Not Peter. _Tony_.

Sometimes, Peter wishes he didn’t have the suit. He hates touching it. He hates stuffing it into his closet like another worn-out sweater. He hates wearing it, but he hates _not_ wearing it. Most of all, Peter hates that he wouldn’t take back a single second of the past just to feel whole again. He’s missing a piece of him, but it’s something he can heal from. And Spider-Man will be there to help. He knows it.

For the past few months, Peter has been calling Happy whenever he feels sad. Whenever he can’t seem to escape his thoughts, Happy is there to remind him of the good things. The little things.

Peter sits up and leans over his knees. Happy answers the phone on the third ring.

“Peter?” he says, concern in his tone already. “You all right?”

“Hey, Happy,” Peter replies. He immediately lets himself fall back against the gravel. He’s exhausted, but not physically. “Sorry t’call you so late. I’m––I don’t know. I think I’m okay.”

Happy is quiet for a moment. He’s too busy analyzing everything the kid says.

It’s in that silence when Peter realizes that he’s not okay. He hasn’t been okay, and it feels like he never will be. He sniffs, and the façade tumbles down.

“I’m sorry,” Peter whimpers out, trying to keep his muscles calm so he doesn’t break completely. “I’m sorry. I don’t how to be strong about this, Happy. I don’t know how to keep going, t-to feel like I’m okay and to be––to be _this_ without him. It’s not the same without him.”

Happy’s sigh comes clean through the receiver. “Peter,” he whispers.

“A-and I know he wouldn’t want––”

“He doesn’t want you to feel like this,” Happy says. “You gotta let yourself grow.”

“I just don’t know how to be Spider-Man without him,” Peter mumbles. His mask is slightly damp from his tears. “How am I supposed to do this without him? I dunno how to be what he expected me. Not anymore. I don’t think I ever did.”

“Let me tell ya, Peter, you’ve always exceeded Tony’s expectations––”

_“Yeah, right_.”

“I’m not lying to you,” Happy assures. “I’m not. And the reason I know that is because he talks about you like you’re his own goddamn kid.”

Peter’s lips pull into a frown, and there’s an ache in his chest whenever Happy talks about Tony in the present tense. He doesn’t like it.

“He talks about you like you’re practically his son,” Happy continues with a bit more urgency. “And the man had never wanted kids. Suddenly, you come in, and he’s complainin’ that his gray hairs are growing like weeds. But through all that, he talks about you like you’re the best thing he’s seen in his lifetime. We know Tony––he’s lived a thousand more lifetimes than any of us.”

Peter almost can’t stand it. The way Happy speaks makes it sound like Tony isn’t even dead. And Peter hates it. He hates talking about Tony like he’s still there. It makes him feel in denial, and Peter doesn’t want to be in denial. He wants to feel okay.

Happy carries on. “Tony trusts you. Always has. Probably trusts you more than he should.”

“He didn’t trust me,” Peter mutters. “I’m a kid. He was too smart to trust a kid.”

“Not true.”

Peter shivers. He wants to go home now. He wants to be in bed.

“He knew what he was doing,” says Happy. “It was never that he didn’t trust you. He saw your potential, and he saw it grow. And truthfully, Peter, that scared him the most. He trusted you like crazy. He trusted that you could do anything. When Coney happened, hell, he brought ya up in every conversation. He just couldn’t bear to see you kill yourself over a hero complex.”

“I don’t have a hero complex.”

“Sure ya don’t.”

Peter pouts. “It’s gotten better.”

Happy lets out a chuckle, and it makes Peter smile, too. Whenever Happy’s happy, things start to make a little more sense.

“Thank you, Happy,” Peter says quietly. He finally sits back up and lets the cold air meet his back. But before he can hang up and head back home, he thinks about the past week. He thinks about the one thing that has been haunting him since it was left on his phone last Monday. “Hey, Happy?”

“Yeah?”

“I––uh, I got this really weird voicemail like a week ago,” Peter begins, mumbling and fiddling with his fingers to ease the anxiety. “It was… scary. I just wanted to talk about it.”

“You said a voicemail?” Happy asks. “From who? Don’t tell me it’s from Fury, okay––that guy’s been driving me nuts ever since October. What the hell does he need from me? And what the hell does he need from _you_? God, I hate him.”

“No, no,” Peter says, shaking his head. “I don’t know from who. It was just static. Mostly static. Except there was this voice. I-I think it was saying my name. May thinks so, too. I had her listen to make sure I wasn’t just hallucinating or something. And I ran tests and stuff. Just to see where it came from, but I couldn’t find anything.”

Happy hums. “That’s strange. Are you okay?”

Peter nods to himself and breathes out shakily. “Happy, I––this is gonna sound totally crazy, I know. But the person sounded like Tony. And I just can’t––” Another breath. “I can’t stop listening to it. I can’t stop thinking about it.”

Happy doesn’t reply for a few seconds. “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Well.” He pauses. “Find a way to send it over. I’ll have a listen.”

Peter digs his hand through the gravel on the roof. Something about the feeling is therapeutic. “Yeah. Sure. I’m sorry.”

“What’re you sorry for?”

“I just don’t wanna sound like I’m trying to project something here––if that’s even how I should describe it.” He takes a stone between his fingers and tosses it. “Even May thought it sounded like Tony. And Karen––”

“Karen?”

“Suit lady. My AI.”

“Oh, okay.”

“She said it was a 36% match,” Peter says, “and that’s from some shitty recording that––”

“Pete––”

“––you can barely even hear, and I know 36% isn’t much, but it’s still––”

“Peter, _hey_ ,” Happy says. “I’ll listen. I believe you. I’ll listen.”

Peter relaxes his shoulders. “You will? O-okay, yeah. Thank you. I’ll get Karen to send you the file. Thank you, Happy.”

“Anytime, Peter.”

Peter sits by himself for a while. He’s positioned himself on the ledge of the roof, feet dangling over four stories while the people thin out from down below. Happy hasn’t called him back yet––it’s been close to fifteen minutes, and Peter starts to think he won’t even bother. For now, Peter still waits in the freezing cold, but he doesn’t care by that point. He’s a little too numb to feel it. All he _wants_ is to feel some sort of peace. And in a way, he does.

Eventually, he forgets that he’s waiting for a phone call back from Happy. Peter watches planes take off in the distance, and he imagines the lives of every individual on those planes. He wonders where they’re going––if they’re heading out on some grand miraculous journey or coming back home. He wonders if they’re seeing a loved one. Maybe they haven’t seen that loved one since the blip. Maybe they haven’t seen that loved one in five years.

A picture of Happy pops up in the heads-up display.

_“Incoming call from––”_

“Yeah, yeah, answer it,” Peter says before Karen can finish.

“Hey, Peter,” Happy greets, voice slow and wary, and with that, Peter knows that what he heard had scared him, too. “I––uh, I listened to it.”

“Yeah?” Peter presses his hands in between his legs to keep them warm. “How many times?”

“More than I could count,” Happy chuckles out dryly. “It was creepy. Like, I felt like I was being watched as I listened to it.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty bad.”

Peter can hear Happy exhale. “It was––wow,” says the older man. “Yeah. I don’t know where to begin.”

“Could you make out any words?” Peter asks.

“Well, I’m guessing the recording you sent me was enhanced, right?”

Peter nods - even though Happy can’t see. “Yeah.”

“The thing––what’s her name? Karen?––did pretty okay, so I could kinda make some things out,” Happy says, and then his voice lowers. “Like your name. Quite a bit actually. And after that, I’m not so sure. I think they said––”

“Did you hear them say ‘can you hear me’?”

“Yeah, yeah, that was it,” he replies. “I missed the ‘me’, but yeah, I heard ‘can you hear’ almost right away. Freaked me the fuck out. Wow. And you don’t know where this call came from?”

Peter bites his lip. “I-is that everything you heard?”

“Well, yeah.” Happy’s voice fills with subtle irritation. “I couldn’t make out any words after that. It’s like the white noise was trying to kill me.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Peter says.

“Oh, well––” Happy clears his throat. “Couldn’t tell. I don’t know.”

Peter frowns. He doesn’t believe him. “You didn’t think it sounded like him?” he asks, and a bit pathetically at that. All Peter wants is for someone else to understand.

Happy takes a moment to answer. “I mean, yeah. No. It’s––it’s _possible_. I’m just sayin’ that maybe someone has a similar voice. Or maybe it’s a recording. I don’t know. I don’t know, Peter. I’m sorry. I just don’t know what to tell ya. But it’s not him.”

“No, I know it’s not,” Peter mumbles. “I know. It just feels wrong. This all feels so wrong.”

“Prank calls usually don’t feel great.”

“I don’t even think it’s that,” he says, twisting around so he can bring his feet back up on the roof. “I don’t know what to think.” As he speaks, his eyes grow heavy and his vision clouds. He can’t cry, not right now. The cold has finally begun to bother him. Through his chattering teeth, he asks, “why did it sound like him? Why was he saying my name? _Why did it sound like him?”_

“Peter, I’m sorry,” Happy repeats. “I don’t know. If you get anything else, let me know, okay? We’ll get you a new phone, new number. New address if need be. Anything you want. Okay? If you’re feeling uncomfortable at all, please let me know.”

Peter slumps. He defects his argument. “Yeah. Thank you, Happy. I really appreciate it. Everything. More than you know.”

“Just keep me updated,” Happy says. There’s a hint of a smile in his tone this time. “And let me know when you get home. Because I know you’re not there, and it’s cold outside.”

“Yeah, _yeah._ ” Peter manages a small laugh. “I will. Thank you.”

“See you, kiddo.”

“See you, Hap.”

Peter listens to the voicemail again for the next hour. He’s home and in bed, freshly clean from a shower and now warm from the comfort of his covers. But he felt more at peace up on that rooftop and with Happy speaking to him. Now, Peter’s been listening to the voicemail. He wants to unhear Tony’s voice. He wants to understand the denial or the confusion on Happy’s part, but he can’t. Peter only hears what he wants to hear.

The effect of the audio has worn off by this point, but when Peter thinks long and hard about it, the context of it all makes him cry. Whoever the person is, whether it’s Tony or some stranger, they’re in such _pain_. That’s what gets Peter the most. They’re not just yelling for a friend. They’re screaming for help. Once he begins to assume that he’s numb to the voicemail, it suddenly feels the exact same way it did a week ago.

Peter pulls his mask over his head so it covers his eyes and ears. “Karen?”

_“How are you, Peter?”_

He shrugs. “I’ve been better, y’know? Could I ask you to do something?”

_“Sure.”_

“Would you be able to do that vocal recognition thing again?” He reaches below his bed and pulls out his laptop as he speaks. “But, if you could try it with different comparisons this time. I’ve gathered a few things I want you to listen to.”

On his computer, he pulls up a list of links to YouTube videos and a recording of an old podcast Tony was featured on. Talk show appearances, movie screenings, award show speeches––the lot. Anything with Tony that Peter can find. He hooks up his laptop to the rest of his suit. A few codes and pressed buttons later, Karen begins to analyze each recording that he sent her.

He lies there patiently for a half-hour, hands beneath his head while he thinks about the classes he’s taking this upcoming semester. Ned is in every single one, and MJ is in a few. He’s excited to get to know her better. She’s pretty and smart, and she listens to the things he says. And she has a nice smile. Peter really wouldn’t mind getting to know her better at all.

_“The results are ready, Peter_ ,” Karen says, interrupting his daydream.

“What do we got, Karen?”

_“Out of all of the recordings you sent me compared to the voicemail, I was able to come up with a 68% match.”_

Peter’s eyes widen. He wasn’t expecting that. He was expecting at least a few numbers more, but never had he assumed 68%. He nervously scratches at his shoulder and clears his throat. 68% is good. But 68% is not enough.

And then it occurs to Peter: the man in the voicemail isn’t calmly thanking his friends for an award or talking about his accomplishments. They’re screaming bloody murder for someone––for _Peter_. They’re desperate. Feral. Completely unleashed, and Peter’s going to need some hard evidence of that for a number much better looking than 68%.

“Are any of those videos of him shouting?” he asks her.

_“Out of four hundred and sixty-two videos, he only raises his voice in fifty-nine,”_ the AI replies. _“But nothing to the same caliber as the voicemail recording.”_

Peter hums and nods, pulling his laptop back over. “Let’s keep looking. Maybe––god, this is stupid––maybe the paparazzi might have things? Like when he was drunk or something? They like to post that stuff. Maybe a fan had recorded something? There’s gotta be something. Some scandal from 2006. _Something_.”

_“That’s very possible.”_

Peter rubs at his eyes. It’s around two in the morning, but he’s beyond caring at this point. He needs answers. So, he spends the next eternity deep-diving into articles from when he was only a few years old. He picks out videos from YouTube’s hay days, some flip cam recordings of Tony yelling and parading down empty streets while paparazzi and fans crowd him. But none of the videos have the same fervor that Peter is looking for.

Eventually, he thinks he finds the one. It’s a video from 2006, just like Peter suspected, and Tony is outside of a club with flashing lights and cameras surrounding him. And he’s furious. Beet-red-furious with the same expression he’s given Peter a few times in the past. Tony’s screaming his lungs out at the paps to get out of his face. They only provoke the behavior along, and then Tony is shoved into a car. Soon after, the window rolls down and the profanities spill out. Peter has Karen analyze the video immediately.

His heart is heavy in his chest, rapidly pounding while his fingers tap at his knees. It only takes a minute for her to compare the two recordings.

_“Peter,”_ she says quietly. _“It’s a 92% match.”_

He falls into his pillow and begins to cry. 


	3. the cabin

It continues with an afternoon spent at Pepper’s house.

He has her famous sweet potato enchiladas on his mind as he rushes home from school. From slapping stop signs to petting a few dogs and having a quick conversation with Mr. Delmar, Peter runs down each block with a smile on his face. It’s his second consecutive week of feeling okay again, and while there have been tough moments, he’s had a healthier time overcoming them. Peter feels good. He feels happy. School is back in session, and he gets to see Ned and MJ every day. And now he gets to see Pepper and Morgan, too.

May lets him drive up there by himself this time. It’s a gutsy move––even Peter second-guesses her decision––but she gives him the keys and ushers him out the door with a hug and a “drive safe”.

He ends up running back over to Delmar’s before heading upstate. It’s only ten bucks to buy a small bouquet for Pepper, and he even throws in a packet of M&M’s for Morgan. Peter has never been given the rundown on what she’s allowed to eat (aside from allergies, which he knows - for a fact - she doesn’t have), so he makes sure to hide them in his jacket pocket just in case. The drive commences with silence up until he hits the backroads––after that, he keeps the radio low and hums along to the songs he knows. He feels good. He feels happy.

The drive isn’t as pretty as it was before the holidays, but he had a hard time enjoying it then. Everything was too fresh. He had never seen that part of Tony’s life, and now he was seeing it without him. It felt wrong, and it still feels wrong. Pepper says that Peter is practically family, but he wishes it felt that way.

The one thing that does feel right is his relationship with Morgan. She’s a little sister to him, and she’s even started calling him her brother. Peter sat in the bathroom and cried for forty minutes the first time she said that. He had always wanted a sibling, and now he has one in Tony Stark’s daughter.

Along with the flowers and the secret candy he’s stowed away, Peter brings along his backpack. It’s filled to the brim with old tech he previously collected off of the streets, and they rattle in his bag every time he hits a pothole in the road. He can practically hear Tony making fun of him for the dents and rusty bits. That man bought everything new, and he spoiled Peter with it. And despite the fixed allowance, Peter ended up resulting back to what he knew before Tony: making treasure out of another man’s trash.

Peter likes how quiet it is where Pepper lives. He likes her alpacas. He likes the lake. He likes how utterly perfect it is. Sometimes, he likes to imagine Tony up here, too. He knew a different man than what the five years had done to his mentor. This was where he ended up, and Peter would give anything to see him in this environment––to see him as a father.

Snow begins to fall as Peter pulls up to the cabin. When he steps out of the car, he catches a glimpse at Morgan pressed up against a window inside. She’s waving like mad, and Peter can’t help but reflect her smile while he grabs his belongings from the passenger seat. He’s been around her and Pepper enough to not be nervous, but it’s hard to shake it off sometimes. He feels like he has to rise up to their expectations.

 _“Petey!”_ Morgan cries, bounding out from the house while barefoot and coatless. She wraps herself around his legs, and he laughs so hard he almost drops the candy from his pocket. “Mommy’s making the enchileedas you love!”

He places a hand on her head as she looks up at him. “Enchileedas. Oh, wow. I can’t wait to have some of those yummy enchileedas.”

Morgan releases her grip from his legs and takes his hand to lead him inside. She nearly drags him up the stairs and onto the porch.

“Where are your shoes, Morgan?” he asks, still laughing. “Your toes are gonna fall off.”

“No,” she says, “my toes like me. They’ll never fall off.”

As they step inside, Peter breathes in the warmth and the savory scent of sweet potatoes and onions. Holiday decorations are still hung up around the banisters of the stairs, and a great big homemade wreath sits above the entryway to the kitchen. He will never get over how homey it feels, but all the while, it’s untouchable.

“Peter, hello,” Pepper greets. “How are you?” Her gaze falls to Morgan who is still pulling Peter into the room. “Looks like little She-Hulk over here is trying to tug your arm right off. Okay, superhero––why don’t you go get some of your crayons so you and Peter can draw while I finish up cooking?”

Morgan’s hand falls from Peter’s before she races out of the room and upstairs. He hasn’t been able to wipe the smile from his cheeks since getting out of the car. Once she’s gone, he turns back to Pepper and hands over the slightly damaged bouquet.

“Oh, my gosh,” she says, smiling and clutching her chest. “Peter. This is so sweet. Thank you. You must’ve known how much I love daffodils and hydrangeas.”

Peter nods slowly. “Y-yes. Of course. I totally knew that. I totally knew that’s what those flowers were.”

Pepper chuckles, taking the flowers as she turns to find a vase from the cabinets. Meanwhile, Peter takes a peek into the pot of boiled sweet potatoes. He wonders what Tony’s favorite meal was.

“Did May drive you up?” Pepper asks. “I hope it wasn’t too icy. We got a bit of freezing rain up here last night.” As she speaks, she sets a vase under the tap, fills it up, and positions the flowers strategically inside. After that, she places the vase directly in the center of the counter.

“Uh–-actually, I drove myself,” he replies.

Pepper returns to the cutting board where a mound of chopped red onions sits, drenching the air with its scent. “Oh, you did? Exciting.”

“The roads were good, actually,” Peter continues. He finally sets his backpack down, and he’s careful to make sure the M&M’s don’t fall out of his pocket. “It’s a nice drive. I like to find back roads just because no one’s on them. And I can drive fast. May would have a heart attack with me driving on those roads.”

Morgan’s feet can be heard stomping down the steps. She skips into the kitchen a second later, her hands full of blank sheets of paper and a 24-pack of Crayola crayons. She smiles, takes Peter’s hand again, and pulls him toward the breakfast table.

“I know what I wanna draw,” she says to him. As she settles into her chair, she dumps the contents of the Crayola box onto the table and picks up a bright red crayon.

“Already?” Peter chuckles. He sits across from her. He’s not an artist - never will be, but he already knows that what he draws will be for Morgan. He examines the strewn collection of crayons and chooses a light blue color. “Well, now I know what I’m gonna draw. But I can’t tell you. You’re just gonna have to find out when I’m done.”

Morgan furrows her brows and pouts. “Then I’m not telling you what _I’m_ drawing.”

“That’s fair.” Peter laughs. “May the best drawing win.”

Halfway through his drawing, Peter is caught up in a conversation with Pepper about the classes he’s taking at school. It’s snowing a bit harder outside as he tells her about the schools he’s thinking of applying to starting next fall. And he tries not to bring up Tony’s name as he mentions MIT, but he watches the expression on Pepper’s face shift ever so slightly.

“I don’t want this to sway your decision,” she begins softly, laying the filled tortillas into a baking dish, “but a few years ago, Tony set aside some funds in your name. He tried to get MIT to accept his proposal to have a Parker Scholarship Fund––it didn’t work; they were kind of looking for an alumni’s name––but I have a few good reasons to believe that he might want you to go there. But, of course, he’ll be proud of you no matter what you school you choose to go to.”

Peter nearly breaks the crayon in his grip, but instead, he smiles up at Pepper and thanks her for her words. Tony had wanted to fund a scholarship in _his name?_ He can’t believe it. Peter dwells on the thought as he finishes up his drawing for Morgan, and any tear that threatens to spill is quickly wiped away.

“Done!” Morgan exclaims, holding her finished drawing high above her head.

Across the room, Pepper slides the enchiladas into the oven, sets the timer, and turns to see what her daughter drew. From what Peter can see, as Morgan waves the paper around, it’s a drawing of Iron Man. She finally holds it straight towards him, and he can now see that it’s not only Iron Man but Spider-Man, too. It’s both him and Tony.

“Daddy’s helping _Spwider_ -Man,” says Morgan. “They’re fighting crime together.”

Peter smiles, looking fondly over at the messy lines and disproportionate shapes. But as for the suits, they’re spot on. “Well, then, I guess you can see mine now, too,” Peter responds, holding up his drawing of Morgan holding hands with Elsa and Anna from Disney’s _Frozen._

Her face lights up. She leaps from her chair and scampers over, clutching the drawing over Peter’s grip as her giggles fill the room. “Mommy! Mommy! Look what Petey drew!” She takes the drawing over to Pepper. “It’s me, Anna, and Elsa.”

Pepper smiles at Morgan. “Oh, it’s gorgeous. You lucky duck! You’re practically best friends with them now.” She looks up at Peter. “Is it okay if I hang it up?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he says. “Of course.” He feels happy, but right now, he feels weird. He feels a part of something. He feels like he’s a part of their family. And as Pepper hangs his drawing up on the fridge next to Morgan’s, it finally dawns on him that he _is_. This can be his family. Once again, he has to wipe the tears away from his eyes. He thinks Pepper sees, but she doesn’t say anything. She keeps smiling. She seems to know exactly how he feels. And this is her way of saying that he is home.

Peter’s love for the sweet potato enchiladas has only grown exponentially.

After dinner, he offers to help with the dishes while Morgan keeps herself preoccupied with a few action figures. Her favorite––for the time being––is Captain America. Next week it will be Thor, but when she’s asked about it, she’ll always say that Iron Man is her favorite. Peter’s waiting for the day he gets his own action figure.

Pepper inquires about Peter staying the night due to the snow when he sees the picture. His hands are deep in sudsy, soapy water as he looks at the blizzard outside. Out of the corner of his eye, he notices his own face staring back at him. The hot water no longer hurts while he takes in the framed image and lets it burn into his brain.

“Has that always been there?” Peter asks. It’s a picture of him and Tony. The phony Stark Internship photo. The one Tony suggested––and _begged_ , to Peter’s surprise––Peter to take part in because it would help in the long run. It hasn’t for him so far, but maybe it helped Tony.

Pepper looks to where Peter’s gaze is stuck. “Oh,” she says. She’s drying a bowl with a dishtowel. “Yes. You hadn’t noticed?”

“No.” He shakes his head. He can hardly move otherwise. “He––he framed that?”

“Of course,” Pepper replies, smiling softly. Lovingly. “Right away. Never moved it from that spot. I guess he really wanted to remember you when he was doing the dishes.”

Peter’s lips quirk upward slightly.

“You know he loves you,” she tells Peter.

With the words coming from her, that’s all he needs. He finally lets a tear fall, and then another few join in after. He looks over at Pepper, and she seems distant. She seems unaffected by her own words. But her expression relaxes when she sees that Peter has begun to cry. So, she pulls him into a hug, and he realizes that it’s the first time they’ve ever shared one. He holds her tighter.

As she pulls away, she says to him, “I think I can handle the rest of the dishes from here. You should head out to the garage. Tony’s got some stuff in there that I think you might wanna take a look at.”

Peter nods and tries to smile. “Yeah, okay. Thanks.”

She gives him one last smile as well before he walks away. He’s been to Tony’s workshop in the garage a handful of times, but never for long. Peter’s steps are heavy and slow until he reaches the door, and then he stops. It will feel wrong. He won’t belong there. But he takes a breath and enters, and the cold, unfriendly air greets him. Clearly, Tony hadn’t gotten around to installing some insulation.

Peter sets his bag down on a desk chair and takes in the cramped space. It’s much different from the compound. And, in a way, it’s oddly familiar. It’s dusty and gray, and it’s evident that Pepper has hardly touched it - if at all. Peter inhales. It even smells dusty, but oddly enough, it smells like Tony. Peter never wants to leave.

Eventually, he finishes his admiration session and heads over to where DUM-E sits. Peter takes a moment to activate the robot, and it quickly whirs with excitement. It’s nice to see another friendly… arm.

“Hey––uh, FRIDAY?” Peter asks, voice cracking in the process. “You there?”

A few of the monitors on the opposite side of the garage come to life.

 _“Good to see you again, Peter,”_ the AI replies.

Peter lets his shoulders relax. It’s nice to hear a friendly voice, too. “You, too, FRI.” He smiles. He walks over to a dirty espresso machine in a far corner. “Jesus, do you think this thing still works?”

_“Boss only bought it last August.”_

“Oh, well then––” Peter reaches down to plug the machine in. He picks out his most desired espresso pod, dusts off a nearby cup, and lets the machine do the rest of the work. It sputters out hot espresso at a snail’s pace.

As he lets the drink cool, he continues to wander around the small space. Peter imagines Tony tinkering with old suits that he’ll never use again. He imagines Morgan sneaking in here to mess with her dad’s creations and stick googly eyes on what she can reach. Lastly, Peter imagines him in here along with Tony. He imagines what life would have been like if he hadn’t been involved in the snap. It would have been more grieving than imaginable. Sometimes, he believes he was better off having not survived at all.

Peter stares into the eyes of a lonely suit while he takes his first sip of espresso. Immediately, he spits it back into the cup. “Oh my god. That’s poison. Tony likes this stuff?”

 _“To be fair,_ ” FRIDAY begins, _“the water has been sitting idle in the machine for three months.”_

Peter sighs and shrugs. He sets the full cup down on a nearby surface so he can resume looking at one of the Iron Man suits. “You drink that crap?” Peter says to the suit. “You’re crazy. Orange juice is so harmless––you should try it. Tastes good _and_ makes you feel good. Unlike that _hell_.”

A part of him expects the suit to answer back. After a long pause, Peter keeps talking. His voice lowers into a hushed whisper.

“Was that really you?” he asks. “In the voicemail? Was that you? I-it’s been weeks, and I still can’t get it off of my mind. I was kind of in a weird place for a while after I got it, but I feel better now. I do, I really do. But, I just––” Peter sighs once again. It’s just a suit. A stupid suit. There’s no one there. “I miss you, Tony. You saved us all. You saved the world. But… _I miss you_.”

Peter wraps himself around the suit’s torso. It’s cold and hollow, but for a moment, it feels as though the suit is holding him right back.

A while later, he’s sat at Tony’s old desk with a small bowl of popcorn that Pepper prepared for him. The monitors illuminate the dark room, and they greet Peter with an identification screen. A profile on him displays on the central screen, and a bright blue “Access Granted” is slapped on top.

The log-in screen soon follows. Peter enters his username and password and sits back.

Access denied.

He tilts his head, sitting back up so he can reenter his credentials. Denied again. He tries for a third and fourth time. Denied. He thinks he can remember Tony’s old information, but he gets the same message every time. Access denied. Access denied. Over and over.

For the next few minutes, Peter tries any password he can remember off of the top of his head. It’s possible that Tony changed his password, of course, but it doesn’t make sense that Peter would be deleted from the system––right? Tony wouldn’t have done that, even if he did think that Peter was gone for good.

An odd feeling sinks in Peter’s gut.

“FRIDAY?” he asks into the air. “Am I still authorized to access the Stark server?”

 _“Your credentials are still in the system,”_ she says to him. _“You should be authorized.”_

Peter’s eyebrows knit while he types in his information again. Access denied. He’s growing frustrated, and he feels a bit sick to his stomach. A familiar numbness crawls up his arms.

“It’s not working,” he says harshly.

FRIDAY doesn’t answer.

Peter keeps trying and trying until he’s all out of chances. He can’t bypass the firewall––it’s _Tony_. Peter wouldn’t be able to if he tried. The system tells him that he can’t enter in his credentials again for forty-eight hours.

He tries not to get upset, but he can’t help it. Everything that he and Tony ever worked on is in there. Everything that Tony has ever worked on _period_ is stuck in a place that Peter can’t get to. He can’t even look at the stuff that Tony made for Peter, and Peter only. It’s hopeless.

Peter turns everything off. The espresso maker, the monitors, and DUM-E. He leaves the workshop just as he found it. Cold and unwelcoming, and he doesn’t bother saying goodbye to FRIDAY on his way out.

When he enters the living room, he finds Pepper sitting there on the couch. She has a fire going, and through a nearby window, Peter can see that the snow has yet to stop. She looks up from her book and smiles at him.

“Have fun in there?” she asks, ushering him over to sit with her.

He sits slowly, eyes trained on the flickering flames while he keeps his hands locked tightly together. The room is much warmer than the garage. It’s much more friendly and loved. For the first time in a while, Peter prefers anywhere else over Tony’s workshop.

Peter shakes his head.

“You didn’t?”

“I couldn’t––” He clears his throat. “I couldn’t get into the server. Nothing worked. FRIDAY said I should still have access, but––I don’t know. It just didn’t work. And the coffee he used to drink is so _bad_.”

Pepper doesn’t say anything for a moment. “Oh, that’s weird.” She’s quiet when she does speak. “It shouldn’t be like that.”

Peter doesn’t think she’s talking about the coffee. “I don’t wanna worry about it anymore,” he says. “Not right now.”

“That’s okay,” Pepper assures, setting her book down onto the coffee table. “You wanna talk about anything else?”

_Yes. The voicemail._

Peter shakes his head. “No, I’m okay. Just a bit thrown off. Did Morgan go to bed?”

From behind, the sounds of pattering feet creep down the stairwell.

“You’ve summoned her,” Pepper says, laughing lightly.

Peter looks over to where Morgan is sat at the base of the stairs. She’s in her pajamas, hair a little messy from her pillow while she watches both of them with an adorable sly smirk.

“Sleep monster not ready for you yet?” Pepper asks. She looks over at Peter. “Morgan’s the polar opposite of every child to ever exist. She loves monsters. She cried once because Tony couldn’t find a monster hiding in her closet.”

Peter cracks a smile.

“Nope,” Morgan replies, shaking her head. “Not until Petey says goodnight to him.”

“Looks like you’re on bed-tucking duty,” Pepper tells Peter.

He chuckles, standing quickly before Morgan can come over and pull his arm off again. She meets him at the stairs and rushes up ahead of him. At least now he can give her the M&M’s without Pepper seeing.

“Goodnight, Peter,” Pepper says before he can walk up after Morgan. “I’m glad you’re here. And I’m glad that you’re for Morgan. She loves being around you. Thank you. It’s been really special.”

Peter smiles again, and it feels natural. He feels good. He feels happy. “I’m glad to be here, too. Goodnight, Pepper.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's a reason i picked daffodils and hydrangeas but i cant remember by this point. some meaning behind them idk


	4. the (world's best) babysitter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter gets his first babysitting gig.

It continues when Peter is asked to babysit Morgan.

Like any normal Friday, he gets home from school, soggy sandwich in hand while he contemplates whether or not he should go out on patrol later that night. He thinks he’s more than ready for things to go back to normal, but there’s always a voice––some angel or demon on the shoulder, he can’t decide––telling him that the timing isn’t just right yet. So, for now, he takes things slowly.

He keeps his Friday night indoors for a movie night with May. It’s popcorn and pajamas, Twizzlers and Milk Duds, and a marathon of Jaws until neither of them can keep their eyes open for longer than a minute at a time. Halfway through the second film (and after a quick pee break in the midst of realizing–– _holy shit, May, it’s almost midnight)_ , Peter’s phone buzzes with a handful of messages. He thinks it’s Ned complaining about how his Fallout game won’t eject from the console again or something. He thinks it’s anyone but the person it actually is.

All four of the messages are from Pepper.

_Hey, Peter, I need to ask you a favor._

_Are you free tomorrow?_

_This is very last minute, I know. I need someone to watch Morgan for the day. I would drop her off around 9 in the morning and pick her up sometime that night._

_Let me know as soon as you can. Thanks. Love, Pepper_

He stares at it for a few minutes, fingers unmoving over the keyboard while he rereads it over and over. He doesn’t know quite how to react, not until May catches him staring–– _gawking_ , practically––at his phone through the pitch dark living room. She hits his shoulder with a pillow.

“Hey, you,” she says tauntingly, “what’re you looking at? You’re missing the part where––actually I have no idea what’s happening. Are we still on the second movie?”

Peter presses his legs up to his chest and sets his chin on his knees. “It’s Pepper,” he mumbles, giving the messages one last glance before handing the phone over to May. “She wants me to babysit Morgan.”

May smiles. “Well, you definitely should,” she says as she reads over the messages. “You’ve got nothing going on tomorrow. Why don’t you?”

“I-I mean I _could_ ,’ Peter replies. He tilts his head toward her, cheek pressing into his knee while his heavy eyes threaten to close. “I’m just a little––I’m a little thrown off. I’ve never babysat before. I don’t know how. And why would she want me to do it? Like, there are some other perfectly capable babysitters out there who are actual professionals, a-and I’m just sixteen and definitely _not_ a professional.”

May lowers her chin and narrows her eyes.

“What?”

“You’re kidding me, right?” she asks.

Peter tries to shake his head. With how he’s sitting, it doesn’t really work. “I just don’t understand why she’d trust me over someone else more qualified.”

“Peter, it’s Morgan we’re talking about here,” says May. She sats his phone down on the coffee table. “You know that, right? That we’re talking about Morgan? You’re literally a brother to her. You’re really worried about not being capable of watching over her for a day? You’re such a wacko.”

“ _Hey_.” He pouts. “I’m not a wacko. It’s just a big responsibility.”

“Think of it as your final initiation, then,” May tells him, and he looks at her questionably. “Into the family, Peter! You doof. You’re so negative. This is a good thing. This means she trusts you. Out of all the people she knows, if she can’t take care of her child, then she wants you to.”

His eyes widen. “I can’t take care of a child, May, I’m sixteen!”

“I _mean_ that you’re the next best person to look after Morgan for a little bit when she can’t,” May explains, “that’s all. And _relax_. I’m pretty much home all day tomorrow. I’ve got a few errands to run, so unless you and Morgan wanna come grocery shop and buy a new vacuum, you’ll only be on your own for a few hours–– _tops.”_

Peter sighs, letting his feet fall back onto the carpet as he leans back into the couch. “My life is so hard,” he whines. “Can you just text her back for me? I feel like I’ll say it all wrong.”

“You’re not sixteen, you’re ten,” May says, her voice deadpan. “Write her back, or I’ll tell everyone that you’re Spider-Man.”

“Ha-Ha, very funny.” Peter reaches over for his phone and proceeds to stare blankly at the messages again. He groans. “ _God_ , it feels weird. Something about this feels weird. She’s never asked me to babysit before, May. I just don’t––” He sighs. She’s glaring at him. “Fine. I’m answering.”

“Finally,” May mutters. “I’m a hundred years old.”

Peter types rapidly on his phone before reading the message off to her. “Okay, how’s this sound? _Hey, Pepper. Yes, of course, I can babysit Morgan tomorrow. I’ll be looking forward to it. Love, Peter.”_

“See?” May hits his shoulder with a pillow again. She stands. “Not hard at all. And now I have to pee again. You made me wait so long that my bladder filled right back up. Pop some more popcorn then, would ya? And get rid of the ‘love, Peter’––only she can pull that off.”

“I might actually go to bed,” Peter says, rubbing at his eyes, “since I have to be up to meet Pepper at nine. I don’t wanna be too sleepy tomorrow.”

May rolls her eyes. “Okay then, old man. I guess I’ll watch the shark burn by myself.” She presses a kiss to the top of his head as she rounds the back of the couch. “Night, sweetie. Love you.”

He smiles. “Love you, too.”

Peter finds that he can’t sleep once he’s lying in bed. He’s too busy planning over the next day in his head. He’s too busy wondering why the hell Pepper came to him instead of someone like Happy. Well, it was possible she _had_ gone to Happy and others too, and maybe Peter was the only one who ended up being available. None of that matters anyway. She still asked _him_ to babysit.

And he can’t, for the life of him, figure out why. He’s pretty sure Pepper works from home, but then again, he isn’t too sure. He doesn’t know much about her life. He only knows what Tony used to tell him. Peter is more familiar with the Pepper that has learned to live without Tony.

Peter finally falls asleep around three in the morning. After a few hours of tossing and turning due to nerves, the excitement of it all shows up unexpectedly. The one thing he loves more than being Spider-Man these days is getting to hang out with Morgan. He’s not quite ready to face the world as a superhero again, but he’s more than ready to be the best brother ever.

He hadn’t prepared for this sort of thing––being a brother, or something along those lines. He hadn’t been given a heads-up or a greeting card that said, “Congrats! I’m a father, so since I’ve practically adopted you, then that means you’re a brother. - TS”. There was nothing that warned Peter that he would wake up after five years to _this_. He didn’t get out of bed the day of his MoMA field trip and think that he would fight aliens that day. He didn’t think he’d, later on, watch another death unfold. He didn’t think that all of that would lead to him freaking out over babysitting Tony Stark’s daughter. But it did.

Pepper is at the front door to their apartment at nine o’clock sharp. She has Morgan in her arms, all bundled up in a pale pink peacoat with a woven scarf and hat. Today, Morgan is shy. She hides her face in Pepper’s shoulder the minute she catches Peter’s gaze. He hopes it’s only because she had to wake up early.

“Hi, Peter,” Pepper greets, breathing out while she sets Morgan down onto her feet. “Good morning.”

Morgan whines and huddles herself into Pepper’s legs.

Pepper smiles. Her actions are quick and hurried. “She was practically up all night––it’s my fault. Sorry if she’s grumpy today. She’ll warm up to you. She always does. Anyway––” She pulls her phone from her pocket and checks the time. Her eyes widen briefly before she stuffs the phone back into her coat. “I’m so sorry to be doing this last minute. I promise it won’t happen like this again.”

“Oh, Miss Potts, it’s totally fine,” Peter assures quickly. He feels the need to match her pace. “I’m happy to help.”

“Thank you, and please, Pepper is just fine.” She leans down to level herself with Morgan. “You be good for Peter, okay? No extortion over ice cream or juice pops. Do you promise?”

Morgan smiles, nods her head, and holds up her pinky. “Pinky promise.”

“Good,” Pepper says as she wraps her pinky around her daughter’s. She stands back up to face Peter. “I’ve got to run, but––” She tugs a small piece of wrinkled paper out from her pocket and hands it over to him. “This is a list of activities and foods, but they’re honestly just suggestions by this point. I’m not even worried about her being picky since she loves you so much. And, if she tells you she wants pancakes, don’t cave. She already had strawberry pancakes earlier. She just wants more. Oh, also––” Once again, she reaches into her coat, but this time, she retrieves a twenty-dollar bill. “Here’s a little something in case you wanna go out and do something. Maybe go buy some M&M’s.”

Peter presses his lips together. Caught. He eyes Morgan, and she smirks up at him. She’s cute, but she’s devious.

“Okay, thank you again,” Pepper continues. She lowers herself to kiss Morgan’s forehead before giving Peter’s shoulder a squeeze. “I’ll see you later this evening. Text me if you need anything.”

And then she’s off.

He’s never seen Pepper so rushed and frantic, but he doesn’t dwell on it as Morgan pokes at his leg.

“Petey,” she says softly before yawning. “I want pancakes.”

He laughs, taking her by the hand and guiding her inside. “I’ll make you pancakes.”

It’s effortless.

By lunchtime, Peter thinks that he has it all handled. The best he can fix up for food is chicken nuggets, which either means he’s the best or worst babysitter in existence, but Morgan doesn’t seem to mind. She does, however, mind that they’re not dinosaur-shaped like the ones her dad used to buy her. So, Peter texts May and asks her to pick up dino nuggets from the grocery store, meanwhile, he tries not to tear up.

He learns that, of all things, her favorite thing in the world is drawing. Peter’s lucky that he has an old pack of colored pencils stored away. While he’s fixing the nuggets on a pan, she draws a picture of Spider-Man swinging over the city skyline. Next to drawing, she says that superheroes are also one of her favorite things. Her dad was her hero. And there’s no doubt that she’s certainly a Stark. Even for nearly five-years-old, she’s got the wit. She’s smart, and she loves talking about her dad almost as much as he loved talking about himself.

Then again, Morgan loves talking. Period.

She talks about her favorite movies and TV shows while they’re out on a walk in the park. She thinks _Rusty Rivets_ is the best show to ever exist, and Peter has no idea what the hell she’s talking about as she goes on about Ruby and Rusty’s adventures. She talks about her dreams, her mom, her toys, and the alpacas back home. She talks about Rhodey and Happy. And when she talks about Tony, Peter holds her hand a little too tight.

She doesn’t quite understand the magnitude of death. She doesn’t know the severity of it yet. The weight of the loss will hardly follow her as she grows older. She’ll soon forget the memories she shared with Tony, and that makes Peter’s stomach hurt. He doesn’t ever want her to forget.

Which is why he lets her talk about everything. Even the stuff that Peter doesn’t expect to hear.

They’re sitting on the living room floor and playing a game of Go Fish when she mentions that she and her mom are moving. Morgan proceeds to ask him if he has any 3s. She’s a lot better at the game than he is.

“You’re moving?” he asks her.

She seems unfazed by her words as she nods. “Mhmm.”

“When did she tell you that?” Peter sets his deck face-up on the coffee table, and Morgan leans over to take a peek before he can stop her.

She takes his pair of 3s. “Thank you.”

“Morgan, when did Pepper tell you that you’re moving?” Peter repeats. His fingers start to tremble. It doesn’t matter––it _shouldn’t_ matter, but he doesn’t like the thought. He had grown accustomed to that home. He was starting to love it like Tony once had. They can’t just _move_.

“She didn’t,” Morgan says. “Have any 8s?”

Peter picks his cards back up again and shakes his head. “Go fish. Wait, what do you mean she didn’t tell you? You’re not moving then?”

“I heard her say it to Uncle Rhodey,” Morgan replies, and it’s so nonchalant, it makes Peter’s heart hurt. “We’re going somewhere new. Dunno where. But we’re bringing Gerald.”

Peter frowns. He won’t get his answers this way. He feels almost as naive as her, but he’s been rolling with whatever happens for so long. He needs to know now. He needs the answers because he believes that he deserves them.

He sighs. “Got any Jacks?”

And Morgan giggles. “Go fish.”

May comes home in time to make dinner. She makes sloppy joes and green beans, and Peter puts on a movie for them to watch while they eat. Morgan practically begs Peter––in the midst of sticking green beans onto her teeth to look like a walrus––to play _Moana_ so she can sing and dance along. He gladly does so, of course, but twenty minutes in, he excuses himself. Morgan hardly takes notice.

He closes the door to his room, but Dwayne the Rock Johnson’s singing voice can hardly be muffled. Peter lets out a sigh as he rushes through the contacts on his phone. He stops at Happy’s number and calls.

He picks up on the third ring.

“Hey, Peter,” he says, voice slightly concerned. “Is everything all right? You’re still with Morgan?”

“Yeah, yeah, everything’s fine, Happy,” Peter replies. He runs a hand through his hair. “Listen, Morgan told me something today, and it’s been bugging me for a few hours. I just gotta run it by you and make sure it’s true––or not true, I don’t know. Sorry, I’m being rude. How are you?”

“I’m okay…” Happy says slowly. “What’d she tell you?”

“Is––is Pepper planning on moving anytime soon?” Peter presses the back of his head against his door. “Morgan said that they’re moving.”

Happy doesn’t answer right away. “Oh,” he eventually whispers. “I think Pepper is considering it, yeah. I don’t know if it’s for sure yet. Why’s it bugging you?”

“Because––” Peter lets out a breath. “Because I don’t want them to move,” he mumbles. “I don’t want them to leave.”

“I think the worry is just about privacy,” Happy continues.

Peter furrows his brows. “But they don’t have any neighbors for like, two miles. That doesn’t make sense.”

“Yeah, I don’t know.” Happy says something away from the phone, but Peter can’t hear it. He’s most likely talking to someone else. “But you won’t have to worry about anything, Peter. Promise. They’re not going far, just upstate.”

“Wait––so are they actually moving?” Peter asks. “You said Pepper was just considering it. Is it actually happening?”

“I–-oh, well––” Once again, Happy’s voice can be heard at a distance, yet it’s incoherent. “Yeah, I’m––gimme a sec.” His voice becomes more clear as he says to Peter, “I’m sorry. I gotta go. I’m sorry. Got another call coming in. We can talk tomorrow, okay? Tell the little devil I say hello. I’ll talk to ya later, Peter. Buh-bye.”

Before Peter can say goodbye, the call is dropped. He stares at his phone in confusion. That was… weird.

As Peter opens his door, May is on the other side with her hand up as if she was about to knock.

“Oh, hey,” she whispers and folds her arms. Behind her, he can see Morgan watching the television intensely. “What’s going on? Is everything okay? Morgan keeps asking me when you’re coming back. She says she doesn’t wanna keep dancing alone. It’s so frickin’ cute.”

Peter fidgets with the case on his phone. “Um––yeah,” he says, clearing his throat. “I-I just talked to Happy. I asked him if what Morgan said about her and Pepper moving was true.”

“Well?”

Peter nods. “I think it’s true. He didn’t seem sure. Or he didn’t wanna tell me. I don’t think he wanted to talk to me. He was in a rush.”

“Huh, weird.” May drops her arms to her sides. “Maybe he was just too busy to talk. I don’t think it’s that he didn’t wanna talk to you. But, for now, try to let it go if you can; okay? It’s all gonna be okay. You’ve got a little four-year-old who loves you and wants to dance. Let’s give the people what they want.”

Peter cracks a smile and nods. “Yeah. Okay.”

But one thing he can’t do is let it go. He’s angry, he’s _pissed_. He tries not to let it show, but Peter feels pushed aside for some reason. He feels out of the loop. He feels like there’s something he’s missing. And, for some reason, it feels like it has everything to do with Tony, and it kills him.

Around eight o’clock, Peter has a sleepy Morgan on his lap when Pepper texts that she’s on her way. He stirs the young girl awake.

“I’ve got a juice pop with your name on it,” he says, and she springs up and toward the kitchen.

They sit at the counter in silence for a while. It’s the quietest Morgan has been all day as she devours her grape popsicle. She’s the only person in existence to like the flavor––Peter opted with cherry.

As he wipes at her face, he asks her, “do you know where your mom was today, Morgan?”

She shakes her head. “No. I wasn’t allowed to know.”

“You weren’t?” Peter frowns. “Why not?”

“Because,” Morgan begins, “Mommy says it has to wait until I’m older.”

When Pepper arrives, she seems less frantic and more frazzled. She thanks Peter at least a dozen times, offering him as much money as he pleases––to which he politely refuses. There are remnants of mascara stains left under her eyes, and her smile is tired when she speaks. But she gives Peter a hug and leaves it at that.

And he’s left wondering what the hell he’s missing. 


	5. the documents

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter does something he shouldn't––which, for him, happens a lot. In this case, it also happens to be illegal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im gonna be honest idk how i feel abt this chapter lol i'm not entirely happy with how it came out but then again it's still a necessary chapter so idk  
> i also was just too lazy to rewrite it lol hope u still enjoy tho!

It continues with Peter’s inability to sleep.

It feels like it’s been one in the morning for the past three hours. When he was first bitten many years back, Peter found it hard to sleep through the night. There was constant commotion, constant thoughts that swirled around like tie-dye on a shirt, and his senses would pick up on anything that came within a fifty-mile radius of the old place on 78th. If a truck honked from Brooklyn, he heard it. A baby crying in Hempstead? It became a ringing in Peter’s ears.

And now, he changes sides on his pillow once every few minutes. He closes his eyes and promises to not open them again, and then he’s suddenly caught up in an old conversation with Happy or Pepper again. He can’t escape it, especially not when he thinks about that _stupid_ , dumb freaking voicemail left on his phone a little over a month ago.

Peter huffs and lies flat on his back. It’s ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous––tenfold the amount of ridiculous it _had_ been when he first heard the message. But then there’s Happy’s vague answers and Pepper’s weird babysitting request, not to mention her sudden move upstate that Peter wasn’t even allowed to help with. He’s driving himself stir crazy over sitting and knowing nothing.

But what is there to even _know?_ He has a hunch that, behind Pepper’s sweet smiles, there are a few hundred truths that she’s dying to tell him. To be honest, she’s better at keeping a secret than Happy, if there is even a secret to be kept. That’s what bothers Peter the most––he could be totally wrong. If he’s right, well, then there better to be something to be right about. He has nothing. Nothing but the feeling that there _is_ something.

He faces his window, blinking up through the cracked blinds to see the streetlights filter in. Is it still one o’clock? He doesn’t know. He wants sleep. He wants honesty.

_“Peter!”_

He can’t remember when he closed his eyes, but the voice in his head stirs him awake. _Startles_ is more like it. When he checks his phone, it’s finally 2:12 AM. He had managed to get some minutes of shut-eye. But then that _voice_. It’s Tony’s. Peter still knows that. He’s still confident that the voicemail, whether it was altered or not, involved Tony in some way or another.

And then that’s where Peter loses his place. How can it be Tony? Tony isn’t alive. Who would send Peter, of all people, a voicemail like that if it wasn’t meant to be personal?

He takes a breath, and his eyes feel a bit heavier. It’s useless.

_“Peter!”_

He wakes for a second time, and this time, it’s 2:45 AM. There’s a car alarm going off from down the street, but it soon fades away. The voice––the stupid voice. It’s still in his head, tracing its sound into his skull until the bones rattle with every piece of _Tony_. Peter’s never heard Tony scream like that. He’s never heard him so scared.

_“ … Can you hear me?”_

Peter tosses his torso down over the edge of his bed and reaches toward the pile of red and blue on the floor. He feels for the material and pulls himself back up, tugging the mask over his head before the brightly-colored interface invades. His lips quirk upward as Karen greets him.

 _“It’s nearly three in the morning, Peter_ ,” she says. _“You have school tomorrow.”_

He coughs. “Can’t go––” Coughs again. “I’ll be too sick.”

_“Your temperature reads at a normal 98.4 degrees Fahrenheit.”_

Peter rolls his eyes, lying back against his pillow so he’s faced toward the ceiling. “Know-it-all,” he mutters. “I need someone to talk to, Karen. I just––I feel like there’s so much I don’t know, you know?”

 _“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Peter_ ,” the AI replies. _“Can you elaborate?”_

“Oh, yeah, sorry,” he mutters, drawing on his arm with his finger. He feels like he’s trapped in an alternate universe. The world feels so different in the early morning. It feels like he’s the only one left on earth. “Um, well, it all started with that voicemail. And then it seems like Happy and Pepper have been acting all weird lately. And I––” He sighs. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore. And I can’t stop thinking about that message. It kills me that I can’t hear it all.”

_“The voicemail?”_

“Yeah, that one.” Peter closes his eyes for a few seconds. They shoot right back open. “Is it––is it possible you could go over it again? Look for keywords?”

_“You would like me to trace the audio file for a list of possible words?”_

“Yeah,” he says, “do that.”

 _“Sure.”_ She seems happy to do it. _“Just a sec.”_

And it truly does take only a second. Peter’s heads-up display fills with a massive list of words, and that’s only from the second half of the video. The first half is mostly white noise and the voice calling his name.

“This is gonna take forever,” he nearly whines. He kicks his feet out like a toddler.

_“I have categorized each word by probability if that helps.”_

Peter inhales deeply. There are still a few hundred words that are above 80% probable. “Good, that’s good. Helpful. Can you predict sentences?” he asks his AI. “Like predictive text in my phone?”

_“I can certainly try, but I can’t promise it’s going to be accurate to what may actually be in the voicemail. Would you still like me to go ahead?”_

He shrugs to himself. “Give it your best shot, I guess.”

A minute later, she comes back with, _“I have compiled a list of sentences that might include some coherent word structure.”_

“Some?” He sits up. “Wait, don’t start yet. I wanna write these down.” Peter heads over to his desk where a sad-looking lamp and a clunky laptop sit idly. He turns on the lamp, and while it illuminates the room in a dim, ugly yellow glow, he opens his laptop. Microsoft Word decides now is the best time to run an auto-update, so he starts up a Google Doc instead. “Okay, I’m ready.”

Karen sounds like a malfunctioning databank as she speaks in tongues. The sentences are a sloppy mess of words that are pasted together like a poorly written magnet poem on a fridge.

_Peter. Peter. Kid. Light beer. Lime unpeeled. Can you hear me?_

_Peter. Peter. Kid. In tears. Mine is concealed. Can you hear me?_

Peter smiles. He hadn’t heard the word ‘kid’ in the voicemail, but if it is in there, then there’s no doubt the voice is Tony.

_Peter. Peter. Kid. Mild fear. In that field. Can you hear me?_

Peter has Karen highlight the words that make the most sense. Fear, tear, concealed, anything that could seem likely, but probably not ‘light beer’. Unless all Tony wanted was a light beer, then hopefully someone got him a light beer. But the voice in the message isn’t drunkenly shouting for something else to drink. It’s different. It’s so much different.

Karen carries on with her wild list of words, and Peter starts to think he should’ve given up on this a long time ago.

He saw Tony die with his own eyes. He went to his funeral. He saw Pepper break, and everyone knows that Pepper, of all people, doesn’t just _break_. Peter is stuck on a fantasy. He’s stuck on his own denial. And he’s not going to humor himself anymore.

Peter lifts the mask up slightly, but then he stops. “What’d you just say, Karen?”

_“Time is near. Find a shield.”_

A shield. Shield. S.H.I.E.L.D.? That’s a thing. That exists. But, no, that can’t be right. What would that even mean?

“Karen, can you tell me about S.H.I.E.L.D.?” he asks.

 _“A shield is_ _a broad piece of metal or another suitable material, held by straps or_ –– _”_

“No, no,” Peter says, chuckling. “Like, the government thing. Not like Captain America.”

 _“Of course,”_ replies the AI. _“S.H.I.E.L.D., also known as the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division, is an extra-governmental military counter-terrorism and intelligence agency, tasked with maintaining both national and global security. Its current director is Alphonso Mackenzie. You have come in contact with former director Nick Fury and former deputy director Maria Hill.”_

“What?” Peter squeaks. “I have? When?”

_“They both attended Tony Stark’s memorial.”_

“Holy shit.” Peter feels uneased. He also feels like someone stuck pins in his eyes, he’s so tired. But he can’t sleep––not _now_. Not when he may have a potential lead to something that doesn’t even make sense.

He bites his lip and fiddles with the edge of the mask to give himself some air. The whole situation feels weird. It smells fishy. Peter has heard Tony talk shit about S.H.I.E.L.D. plenty of times in the past, but that was mostly because of Fury. The one thing Peter doesn’t want is to _ever_ have to deal with Nick Fury.

“Okay, um––” Peter’s thoughts are running a million miles a minute, but he can’t seem to find the right thing to say. “I wanna know more. I wanna know about S.H.I.E.L.D. and stuff. They deal with superhumans and mutants, right? So, wouldn’t they wanna deal with me?”

 _“I’m only able to access a few documents,”_ Karen says. _“I can’t verify that they would have a file on you.”_

“Crap.” He sighs and stares ahead at his laptop. Should he––? No. But he can try. Oh, he’s so getting arrested. He opens a new tab, puts on incognito mode, and from there, Peter isn’t sure how he does it.

His computer science class at Midtown only taught him so many things, but all it takes is an obstruction of a firewall, and Peter seemingly finds his hands full of undisclosed S.H.I.E.L.D. documents that he _definitely_ shouldn’t be seeing. The ordeal itself takes up to an hour. He uses his selective knowledge of codes to bypass and hack, and somehow it works. _How the hell does it work?_ He couldn’t get into the Stark server with a simple incorrect password––so it seems––but breaking into a super-secretive government agency with a shitty laptop at four in the morning? Apparently, it’s a piece of cake.

Peter is sweating by the time he sees a flashy “Access Granted” pop up on his screen. Yeah, he’s definitely getting arrested for this.

“How the hell… ”

_“Very impressive, Peter. You now have access to previous level seven clearance files.”_

“Yeah, thanks,” he says dryly. “I’m gonna die for it.”

There’s too much information for him to keep track of. Documents, files, projects, the lot. All of the previous Avengers have files the size of a continent, but everything is blacked out or encrypted. And Black Widow’s file has a great big “Deceased” stamped at the top of each page. For the most part, Peter is partially glad he can’t see anything. He skims through the projects, but he can’t read the fine print. Project P.E.G.A.S.U.S. Project T.A.H.I.T.I. Project Insight. He’s too tired to read over twenty pages on each.

He does his best to transfer everything over to Karen’s database in a short amount of time. He has his suit pried open on his lap, a lengthy list of coding along with top-secret S.H.I.E.L.D. files displayed together on his laptop, and all the while, he’s trying to keep his hands from shaking too much. By the time the information transfers over, it’s nearly five o’clock, and Peter has left to go pee twice. He quickly closes his laptop and settles into bed.

He’s not going to sleep now that he knows S.H.I.E.L.D. may be out for his ass in a matter of days.

 _“Where shall I begin?”_ Karen asks as he fits the mask back over his head. _“You previously wondered if S.H.I.E.L.D. had a file on you. Would you like to find out?”_

He thinks about it for a moment. “Uh, yeah. Sure. What’s there to lose?”

A wimpy-looking file is pulled up onto his display, and he almost laughs. All they have written are the basics. Age, name, location, and oddly enough––Peter has no idea _how_ ––they also have his weight and height. They have the Vulture guy. They have the snap. They have everything that Spider-Man has ever laid his hands on. But they haven’t had anything since.

“Is Tony’s file here?” Peter asks after a few minutes. “Does he have one?” He’s not sure what to expect. It feels like he’s asking Karen to pour boiling hot water over his head.

She doesn’t answer. Instead, a whole bunch of pages in the file filter through Peter’s display. There’s too much to look at, except there’s also _nothing_ to look at. Every page has been completely blacked out.

“I put my freedom on the line for _this?”_ Peter wonders, and he almost takes his mask off in frustration. He had a lead, and now he has nothing. It’s a terrible way to end a proofless suspicion––there’s now nothing that will help him believe that everything is perfectly normal and okay. _Because there’s nothing there_. “This has to mean they’re hiding something, right?”

 _“It could also mean that the information is no longer valid,”_ his AI replies.

He groans out of frustration. Out of all of the files, there has to be something valuable. There _has_ to. He has Karen magnify each page so he can see it better, but for the most part, it doesn’t help. It feels like the physical version of the voicemail from January.

Peter tilts his head and squints his eyes, thinking that, hopefully, doing so will help him view the page a little better. There are a few blurry spots toward the top of the first page that catch his interest.

“Magnify the first page again,” he tells Karen. “I wanna see what’s up at the very top. Do you think it’ll be too blurry?”

 _“I scan my images and documents at the highest resolution possible_ ,” she says proudly.

As she speaks, the top corner of the first page takes up Peter’s entire heads-up display. Finally, there is something left unmarked.

_Project Interface. H.A.M.M.E.R. Subject #1_

Peter’s brows tighten together. “Karen, what’s H.A.M.M.E.R.? Is it like S.H.I.E.L.D.?”

 _“Yes,”_ she replies. _“H.A.M.M.E.R. is a subdivision of S.H.I.E.L.D. It specializes in the defense and the protection of superhumans, like you.”_

“Huh.” Peter is learning too much for it being so close to sunrise, and he feels the urge to call it quits and let himself rest. But he just _can’t_. The puzzle pieces aren’t fitting together as they should. “What does it stand for?”

_“They haven’t figured that part out yet.”_

“That’s kinda lame,” he mumbles, chuckling dryly while he rubs at his temples. “What else do they do?”

 _“I’m not sure Peter,”_ Karen says. _“There has been no other information about them released to the public, and their files aren’t included in the ones you gave me.”_

He doesn’t like the sound of that. “Weird. Okay. Well, what does that have to do with Tony then? Did he even know what H.A.M.M.E.R. was? When was it created?”

 _“H.A.M.M.E.R. was idealized in 2013,”_ she begins, _“but it wasn’t officially crafted until November of 2023. With the shortage of files, I cannot confirm that Tony did or did not have involvement with H.A.M.M.E.R. or its creation.”_

“And what about Project Interface?”

_“There are no known files about Project Interface.”_

“This sucks,” Peter mutters, letting out a yawn while he turns over in bed. “How am I supposed t’find out more about that voicemail if I can’t even read these stupid files?”

The more he stares at the pages for Tony’s file, the more unsettled Peter feels. That was his mentor, and everything he is or was––according to S.H.I.E.L.D.––is dead with him. There has to be––

“Wait, Karen?” Peter asks, sitting up and leaning over his knees. “I need you to check something for me. Pull up the file for Black Widow again.”

Her file is blacked out just like Tony’s, but the one difference is in bold black letters on the very top. Deceased.

“Okay, compare her first page with Tony’s first page,” Peter instructs, and Karen does as she’s told.

He slumps back onto his bed. “Holy shit.”

_“What’s the matter, Peter?”_

“Um, well, apparently––” He inhales sharply. “––according to S.H.I.E.L.D., Natasha is dead but Tony––Tony _isn’t_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're rly kicking things off now huh


	6. the interrogation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter learns that there are consequences to his actions, but it's not really what he expected.

It continues when Peter realizes that he screwed up _big time_.

Not some normal screw up like forgetting to turn in a homework assignment on time or saying to “you too” to a waiter after they tell him to enjoy his food. The worst part is, Peter knew it had been wrong all along, but he couldn’t help himself. Accessing the files had been just too _easy_.

He’s been pacing all morning, biting at his nails and running fingers through his bedhead. He managed to get a few hours of sleep, and, unfortunately, his alarm clock was toast once it went off at 6:45 AM. It now sits in smithereens on the floor beside his bed.

He’s anxious. He’s too damn anxious. It’s a soda stream in his veins, carbonation running down through his fingers and back up to his heart. He thinks the jitters will go away soon, but he’s halfway through second period when it begins to make him physically sick. The clock looks like a Salvador Dalí painting, and each tick grows louder and louder until Peter thinks he might pass out.

“Dude,” Ned whispers from beside him. There’s an odd look on his face. “Are you okay?”

Peter’s knee is bouncing rapidly—he only just realizes. He swallows and shakes his head. “I think I’m gonna be sick,” he mutters to his friend.

Ned’s eyes widen. “ _Go_.”

In a flash, Peter grabs his things and runs out of the room despite the teacher yelling after him. He has to hope that Ned covers for him and that he can make it to the bathroom in time. Peter’s legs feel like jelly while he shoves himself into a vacant stall. His breaths are long and heavy, and he slides down against the metal door until his knees meet the tile.

Maybe he isn’t going to be sick, but he’s never felt like that before. This is getting to be too much. It’s too out of hand. Peter’s nerves are eating away at him, and it’s all his fault. He screwed up. He screwed up so badly.

He fumbles for his phone and calls the first person in his recents. It’s always Happy.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in school right now, kid?” the older man asks before saying hello, disapproval seeping through the receiver. He always sounds that way with Peter.

Peter exhales, and it’s labored and painful. He feels like crying, but he can’t. “I did something bad, Happy,” he mumbles, voice breaking. “Really bad, a-and I’m scared. I did something really, really bad.”

“It’s—it’s okay,” Happy says, and it’s clear he’s trying to figure out exactly what Peter might have done. “Deep breaths, Pete. What’d you do?”

Peter can hardly think straight enough to say what’s on his mind. To say everything he’s been thinking for the past month. He feels like he can’t trust anything or anyone. “Can you pick me up?” Peter pleads, clutching at the denim over his thighs so his knuckles turn white.

He thinks Happy’s going to laugh and hang up, but the longer the silence lasts, the more comforted he feels. He can hear the man sigh through the phone.

“Yeah,” Happy says, “yeah, I can do that. I’ll be there in twenty. Sit tight.”

Peter doesn’t realize how tired he is until he wakes up to someone banging on the stall door. He groans out, head throbbing while he peels his legs off of the tile beneath him. How long has he been out? He feels more exhausted than he did in the morning.

“Sorry,” he mutters and rubs at his eyes, “sorry. One sec.”

“Pete, hey, it’s me,” Happy’s voice says.

Peter peeks beneath the bottom of the stall to see a pair of polished black dress shoes. He hums as he reaches up to unlock the door. It swings wide open, revealing the red-cheeked, sweaty and frantic man wearing a new worried frown. He looks like he had run all the way there without stopping to breathe.

Peter slumps back against the floor and waves limply. “Hey, Happy.”

“Are you gonna tell me what the hell is going on?” Happy asks, bending down so he can help the teen back up to his feet. “I had to track down your friend Ned and get him to tell me where you were. I checked at least three bathrooms before I could identify you by your sneakers.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Peter whispers. He sways slightly as he speaks. “I wanna—I wanna go outside. Somewhere private.”

Happy nods slowly. His eyebrows are pulled up like he’s concerned. Or sad. Or both. “Sure, Peter, we can go outside. Don’t forget your backpack.”

“Oh.” Peter leans down and tosses the bag over his shoulder, but apparently it isn’t fast enough for Happy’s liking. “What? Somethin’ on my face?”

“Nothing,” the man says. He puts an arm on Peter’s shoulder. “Let’s get you something to eat.”

They drive for a while before Peter has the energy to speak up. Happy’s been silent for the most part too, but when he starts talking about his morning or the weekend prior, Peter enjoys having the chance to listen. It’s like Happy knows what will help clear his mind. As long as there’s a distraction, Peter will feel okay.

But then when there is a moment of silence, he counts every dog they pass and waits for the panic to come back in full force. He messed up. He messed up big time. Not even twenty-three dogs can save him from thinking about why he’s there in the first place. He messed up, and now he’s in Happy’s car because he’s going to get _arrested_. S.H.I.E.L.D. is going to track him down and lock him up for life.

Happy sets a Burger King bag down in Peter’s lap as he pulls over into an empty parking space. “Eat up, and then you can tell me what really, really bad thing you did this time.”

Peter doesn’t move. He doesn’t even open the bag up to smell the french fries. Happy eyes him suspiciously.

“Unless you wanna talk about it now,” Happy says.

“I-I was just curious,” Peter sputters out quickly. He needs to get it all out of his system. He bites at his lip and takes a deep breath. “I was frustrated. I felt like people weren’t telling me things, a-and I couldn’t stop thinking about the voicemail. So then—” He shuts his eyes tight to keep them from watering. “Then I started looking things up, and somehow I broke into—”

“You what?” Happy asks. “You broke into something?”

“I broke into S.H.I.E.L.D.”

Happy’s jaw slackens. “Holy shit,” he whispers.

Peter nods. “I-I broke into their server and got access to a shit ton of documents. And now—Happy, I’m freaking out. They’re—they’re gonna arrest me. They’re gonna—” He can feel his lungs tighten as his breaths pick up. It hurts. _It hurts_. Peter’s arms fall numb.

“Okay, breathe, Peter,” Happy explains, using his hand to demonstrate, “breathe. I need you to tell me what happened. Okay? Just breathe.”

“I just did, Happy!” Peter cries out. “I just told you. That’s what happened. I’m dead. They’re gonna find me and kill me, a-and they’re gonna _arrest me_.”

“That’s—that’s not how it works,” Happy says. “They can’t kill you and then arrest you, okay. You’d already be dead.”

_“Happy!”_

“Sorry, I know!” Happy looks as though he’s about to freak out himself. “Listen, I don’t know a lot about S.H.I.E.L.D., all right? But they’re not going to arrest you. They won’t do that. At most, they’ll interrogate you. You just gotta say you don’t know anything. Okay? That’s all you gotta do. You’re sixteen-year-old Peter Parker who doesn’t know a damn thing. Plus, they probably already know who you are.”

Peter hugs his arms, and his bottom lip trembles as he says, “I know—I know a thing or two.”

“You what?” Happy raises a brow. “What’d’ya mean?”

“I know things,” Peter says again, closing his eyes. “Project Interface. H.A.M.M.E.R. Those things.”

Happy shakes his head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about Peter.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“I mean, it kinda seems like it _does_ —”

“No.” Peter sounds firm, but he doesn’t mean to. He’s just defensive. He doesn’t want to talk about it anymore—he only wants things to be okay. To be _better_. “No, it’s fine. I’m just… scared.” 

Happy nods knowingly. “You’ll be okay,” he tells him with a small smile, “I promise. Don’t do it again, of course. But it’s gonna be okay.”

“Thank you,” Peter replies. He tries to smile, too. “Thank you, Happy.”

“Anytime, Peter.” Happy turns the car back on. “And eat up. You missed lunch.”

Peter makes it to the weekend without another panic attack. And it’s great. He doesn’t _feel_ great, but he feels better than he had. Happy’s words—and Burger King cheeseburgers—seemed to help for the time being, and by the time Friday came around, he starts to believe that he might be in the clear. Maybe he won’t get arrested. Maybe they don’t even know that he broke in. Maybe he’ll be okay after all.

He’s calm as he walks home from school. He’s not thinking about it, or anything for that matter. And, God, it’s nice. It’s nice to feel somewhat at ease for once. He may even call Pepper and ask if he can come to see her for the weekend. He’s feeling okay _._

But he shouldn’t have jinxed it.

A couple walking his way on the sidewalk stop in front of him, and he quickly realizes that they’re not a couple after all. He should have guessed from their blazers and sunglasses. He’s screwed.

“Hi—Peter?” the woman says, smiling sweetly as she reaches into her pocket for something. It looks like a wallet, but when she flips it open, a badge is revealed. A S.H.I.E.L.D. badge. “I’m Agent Diaz—”

Peter presses his lips together and swallows down a bit of phlegm.

“And this is Agent Julian,” she continues, pointing to her counterpart who seems slightly unsettled. “We’re both from S.H.I.E.L.D., and there are some questions we’d like to ask you.”

He exhales through his nose. “Okay.”

“We’d like to take this conversation somewhere a little more private,” Diaz says. She seems nice. They both do. Well, Julian seems a bit prick-ish. “Is that okay with you?”

It’s not, but Peter nods anyway. He doesn’t want to resist two—possibly armed—S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. He may be strong, but he’s not an idiot. It would be a death sentence—a revocation of his suit and his title. “Yeah,” he musters up. “Fine.”

“Great,” she replies, and the three of them proceed to walk in the direction he was heading. “That settles it. Julian said you’d put up a fight. That’s ten bucks for me.”

The man, Julian, scoffs. “It was never an official bet.”

“A bet is a bet.”

Peter interjects nervously, “a bet is a bet.”

“See?” She smiles at Peter. “Even the Spider-kid agrees.”

Huh. Maybe he’s not in deep water after all.

A few minutes later, he’s sat in the backseat of a slick black Audi with tinted windows. He feels safe, but all the while, he feels extremely bothered. He’s not being knocked out cold or dragged into some van with a blindfold on. The two agents in the front are in the middle of a conversation about their old apartments prior to the snap. Julian practically lived in a shack, and after he started working for S.H.I.E.L.D., he was finally able to afford a new place. And then the snap happened, and he lost it all.

Peter has been staring out the window for the entire drive. He’s bothered because he knows exactly where they are. He’s bothered because he has a feeling that something is wrong, but he also feels like _nothing_ is wrong. He wants to text Happy, yet he’s afraid they’ll confiscate his phone.

After about ten minutes, Diaz pulls into a parking lot across the street from a Denny’s in Jackson Heights. Peter has only been there once, and he got food poisoning. His nose scrunches up at the thought.

“What?” Julian asks, adjusting his sunglasses while he rounds the vehicle. “You don’t like pancakes?”

“Not that,” Peter mumbles. “Didn’t have a great experience here, s’all.”

“Well, we can assure you,” Diaz begins as she locks the car, “this one will be much better.”

The diner is fairly empty. They’re seated at some booth in the far back, and right away, both agents order coffees. Peter panics and fumbles on his words as he orders the first thing he can think of. An orange juice. The Julian-guy stifles a laugh while the waitress pours hot coffee into his cup. He covers his laughter up by taking a sip.

“So, Peter—” Diaz says calmly. She taps a dash of creamer into her cup from a little packet. “You go to school around here?”

He nods. On the table in front of him, he fiddles with his fingers. “Yeah. Midtown Tech.”

Julian knots his eyebrows together. Everything about him looks meticulous and professional—except for his posture. He leans against the booth and drapes an arm across the back. Both he and Diaz seem to know exactly what they’re doing, and somehow, that makes Peter feel comfortable. They don’t seem threatening. They seem nice. But they also look prepared to throw out all of the necessary steps needed to get their information.

“Isn’t that the school for insanely smart rich kids?” Julian asks. Meanwhile, his sleeve is pushed up to reveal a Rolex watch.

“Um, I’m not—I’m not ri—”

“Don’t listen to him,” Diaz says. “Anyway, all we’re gonna do is run down some questions with you. Basic, easy-going stuff.”

Peter nods, breathily replying, “okay…”

“The first thing is,” Julian cuts in as he leans forward, “you know what you did. Believe us when we say, this isn’t the first time anything like this has happened.”

“And, of course, by now you know that we’re aware of who you are,” says Diaz. “And that is why—”

Before she can continue with her thoughts, the waitress comes back over with a glass of orange juice. Peter mutters out a quiet, “thank you” before she sets it down and walks away.

“That’s why this entire situation is more casual than not,” Diaz continues. She hasn’t had a single sip of her coffee, but Julian seems to have already drunk half of his cup. “Spider-Man is one of our top priorities right now.”

As she says it, Peter glances around the restaurant's dining room. The only person there is an old man in a booth at the very front, but he’s too engrossed in a newspaper to be aware of them. Peter is a top priority? Yeah, right.

“You guys’ve never bothered contacting me before,” Peter says quietly. He feels small. He feels his age. “Why would I be a top priority?”

“Well, technically,” Julian starts, “you’re a top priority to our defense and protection division.”

Is that H.A.M.M.E.R.? Peter can’t remember.

Diaz nods along to what her colleague says, and she continues with, “if anyone is out to target you or Spider-Man, we know about it first. We want you safe, that’s all. You’re important to us. That’s why we’re a little upset we had to come here after you hacked into our files the other night.”

Peter lowers his head, keeping his gaze on his hands while their eyes continue burning into his skull. He feels nervous still, but most of all, he feels completely embarrassed. His cheeks warm up.

“We just wanna know what you saw,” Julian says next, leaning forward against the vinyl tabletop. He pushes the container of sugars out of the way to rest his elbow. “Nothing invasive. No tests. No experiments.”

“Sounds promising,” Peter says weakly—and with a bit of humor. He hates it here.

“Can you tell us the exact reason why you broke in?” Diaz asks.

Julian adds, “and how you did it?”

Peter should have been prepared to answer the questions days ago. He thinks of what he can off the top of his head. “Uh—I just wanted t’see what you had on me,” he replies, smiling slightly toward the end. “I didn’t mean to make it this huge thing. I didn’t mean for any of it. I kind of broke in by accident.”

Julian raises his eyebrows and chuckles, and Diaz nods, seemingly impressed by Peter.

“You were Stark’s protégé, yeah?” she asks.

“Yeah.”

Julian snickers again, and under his breath mumbles, “not surprised.”

Peter furrows his brows, but he doesn’t question it. He wishes she hadn’t mentioned Tony at all. But he gets it. He understands. He just wants to go home.

“To be honest,” Peter says, tracing the edge of the table, “I actually had an easier time getting into your files than my own on his server.”

Both Diaz and Julian look at each other and back at him. They seem confused, but somehow, they also seem to know what he’s talking about.

“What do you mean by that?” asks Diaz.

“Well, I used to have my own log-in on the server Tony used,” Peter explains. His nerves have calmed down a little bit since the car ride over. “The Stark secure server or whatever it’s called. But the last time I tried, I couldn’t get in.”

Julian shrugs. “Maybe you just typed the password in wrong.”

But then Diaz lays a hand on his arm. “The reason why that happened, Peter,” she begins, looking back over at him, “is that any asset regarding Tony Stark and Iron Man are currently under investigation and analysis.”

“For what?” Peter asks.

“Nothing in particular,” Diaz says. “It seems as though his wife requested we do so.”

“So I was intentionally locked out?”

Diaz nods. “For the time being.”

Julian looks at her like she’s spilling their deepest, darkest secrets.

“That’s not fair,” Peter says with irritation in his tone. He suddenly feels tense.

Diaz doesn’t comment again on the matter. It’s not in her control, so she says, “all we need, Peter, is your honest confession that your intent to break into S.H.I.E.L.D. was purely due to the fact that you were interested in your own file and nothing else. We don’t need much more than that.”

“Well, we do need you to promise that you will never do it again,” Julian adds, “or else the consequences will be more severe.”

Peter nods. He can’t stop fiddling with his hands.

He hates this. He wants to go home.

“I guess I just don’t understand why the consequences aren’t more severe, to begin with,” he says, and he wishes he hadn’t. “Shouldn’t I be reprimanded somehow?”

Again, the agents look at each other knowingly.

Diaz says, “it’s because we believe you, that’s why. And we need you. We have a duty to protect you and others like you.”

 _Others._ She makes it sound like a bad word.

“Your defiance is only strike one.”

Peter nods. “Okay,” he murmurs. “Yeah. I can promise all of that.”

Julian claps his hands together. “Great,” he says, taking one last long sip of his coffee. “We’ll take you back home, then. But, you will need to pay for that orange juice though.”

A little while later, they drop Peter off right at the front door to his apartment complex. It’s a warm goodbye—Diaz smiles and Julian shakes Peter’s hand. Before they leave, Julian rolls down the window and hands over a napkin with splotchy ink.

“Sorry, I couldn’t find anything better to write on,” he says as Peter takes it hesitantly. “If you need us, call this number. See you around, Peter.”

The window rolls back up and the pair speed off, and Peter is left with a huge knot in his stomach. He had just been interrogated by S.H.I.E.L.D.— _kind of,_ but it was nothing like he would have expected. Happy was right. Peter had nothing to worry about. It did end up being okay.

Once Peter climbs the few floors to his apartment, he tells May that he had been at Ned’s for a bit after school let out. He doesn’t want to explain what happened. He doesn’t want her to freak out because he literally _hacked_ into top-secret government agency files. She would flip. And then he would get upset. It would be one huge mess. Instead, he shuts himself off in his room to digest whatever happened.

But when he walks into his room, he can immediately tell that something is off. Something doesn’t feel right. His window is cracked open. His contained mess seems a bit more out of sorts than usual, and where his laptop typically sits on his desk, there’s nothing.

Peter’s stomach drops.

He searches the floor, his desk drawers, his closet, and he even peeks under his bed. He looks in and under every surface in his room. _It was on his floor. It had been on his floor._

Oh no. _Oh no_.

His laptop is gone. And worst of all, his suit is, too. 


	7. the nightmare

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is just a lil something i wanted to add in before things rly took off

It continues with a bad dream.

He’s had bad dreams before—plenty of them. Ones that wake him in the middle of the night and make him afraid to use his own bathroom. There are dreams that don’t haunt him until he remembers them that morning, and then there are dreams he wants to wake up from but can’t.

The beginning is hazy. Nothing looks real. His bedroom isn’t the same, and he doesn’t know why, but his suit is there, and it’s bright green. He doesn’t remember owning a green suit, and last he checked, someone had taken it anyway. And his web-shooters are decked out in odd clunky tech––he doesn’t like it one bit.

But the dream carries on.

Peter ends up on a train going somewhere. It’s the one he takes to school, he thinks, but the strangers on it with him are ghostly and pale. Their eyes are pure white, and their skin cracks and flakes in different places. They all seem to be staring at him, mouths hung open, lips dry. No one speaks a word. The only noise filling up the empty space is the sound of ear-splitting screeches from the track beneath the cars. Beside a door, there’s a poster that reads, “What are you looking for?” and Peter feels threatened by it.

He doesn’t know what he’s looking for.

The train slows to a stop at a station, but when the doors open up, there’s nothing there. It’s pitch black. Peter rises to his feet hesitantly, feeling a call to whatever lies beyond the emptiness, and suddenly he’s pulled back by a force. By hands. A dozen hands grabbing at his torso and his arms to keep from moving. He can see the flesh melting off of their fingers.

And when he falls, he feels like he’s falling forever. Everything is dark while streams of light cascade around him. Is he falling? Is he dying? Is he becoming one of Them?

He prefers dreaming over reality sometimes. He can’t feel pain in dreams.

The visuals don’t come back for quite some time. He can hear more than he sees. There are so many voices, he struggles to place them all.

_“—unstable. I’m sorry, you can’t see him.”_

_“I’m his wife, do you hear me? You expect me to—”_

_“Can I get some help over here?”_

_“Don’t touch me!”_

_“We need to calm her down.”_

_“How dare you touch me—how dare you touch him!”_

_“Miss—”_

_“I’ll—I’ll sue you—you bastards.”_

_“Don’t encourage this.”_

_“You can’t do this.”_

_“It’s already been done. We’re sorry.”_

_“You can’t—”_

Peter can see things again. Small things like a hospital gown and long needles on a tray. He can see a man with piercing blue eyes, and he thinks he’s talking to him, but now he can’t hear anymore. The world flashes around him like strobes; if he could feel, he’d be dizzy. And then the man is gone. Peter is alone in a room, an empty room, and the first thing he knows how to do is escape.

Sometimes he hates dreaming. Sometimes he hates not knowing how to feel.

The hallway is dark compared to the room he was in. Large brick walls tower at least fifteen feet, and Peter appears incredibly small as he pads down the corridors. He has no idea where he is, and he has no idea where he’s going. There are signs pointing him down new halls, and one reads, “Do you know what you’re in for?”

He doesn’t know what he’s in for.

The hallway becomes a dark room. Hefty medical equipment and strange machines surround him, and loud noises echo throughout the cold, massive room. It looks like a horror movie—a suspenseful thriller that Peter once watched after Ned dared him to. But Peter hates scary movies, and now it feels like he’s in one.

There’s an answering machine on a table beside him, and on the machine, a red light flashes. Peter presses the button below it without thinking twice.

_“Peter! Peter! Kid, I’m here!”_

A voice cuts through quiet static. Tony’s voice.

_“I’m at S.H.I.E.L.D. Can you hear me? I’m here.”_

The voice repeats, but it soon fades away as Peter focuses his attention down the center of the room. Something stands there, a figure, and it nearly glows against the gray walls. The more Peter looks at it, the more he can see it.

It’s Tony.

“Tony?” Peter speaks, and his voice trails off into the air.

The figure, Tony, walks slowly toward Peter. There’s a limp in his leg, and his arms are practically useless. One of them is metal. He looks just like the strangers on the train.

“Tony?” Peter hears himself ask again.

Tony freezes, head lolling to the sound. He’s within a close enough distance that Peter can see every detail on his face. His skin is pale, deathly and moist. His hair is slicked down to it. Water droplets fall against his peeling cheeks. The rest of his body looks like it is still decaying. And his eyes—his eyes are the worst part. They’re foggy, vacant. They don’t reflect any light. They stare right into Peter without an ounce of recognition.

Tony—whatever it is—parts his pallid, cracked lips. “P-Peter?” His head lowers, and there’s nothing. Nothing but… brain.

“Tony.”

The man’s expression begins to change. The vacancy in his eyes finally turns to realization, and he starts to smile. And then his gaze hardens. His lips tighten and his eyebrows lower.

As he begins to walk toward Peter again, he grits his teeth. His pace quickens and quickens, despite the limp and despite the distance––he still manages to gain speed. Peter backs up slowly, and soon, he finds himself trying to run away. He thinks he’s calling Tony’s name, but he’s not sure. All Peter can see are Tony’s dead eyes.

So, Peter closes his own.

When he opens them, he sees sunlight peeking through closed blinds. He sees an alarm clock with dull red numbers reading 6:38. He’s awake. He’s awake, and he’s in bed, and _holy shit—_ what the hell happened?

Peter sits up, tossing his comforter off of his body before rubbing his eyes and cheeks. He doesn’t have dreams like that. He hasn’t had a dream with Tony in it for a while—but what was _that?_ The strangers, the zombies. Why were there so many zombies?

He can’t forget about a dream like that, not when it follows him into his day. He sits in the middle of AP Physics with it replaying over and over in his head. He can still hear the sadness in Tony’s voice, and then all of a sudden, he’s chasing after him as if Peter’s his target. It doesn’t make sense. None of it really makes sense.

“A zombie?” Ned asks at lunch. “You’re saying you dreamt that Tony was a zombie? So cool.”

Peter shakes his head. “No, no, no. You don’t understand, Ned. It was very _not_ cool. Super uncool. His skin was decaying and peeling off, and he looked like he had just swim a hundred laps in the ocean. A-and then he recognized me. Like he knew me, he _missed_ me. And suddenly he wanted to kill me.”

“Zombies wanna kill everyone,” Ned says. He takes a bit of a pulled pork sandwich. “Haven’t you seen _The Walking Dead_?”

“That’s not real.”

Ned scoffs. “Yeah, and how would you know? Have you ever seen a zombie before?”

Things start to feel even more off by sixth period. Peter excuses himself to use the bathroom, and the hallways are eerily quiet. A part of him feels like he’s in a dream again, and maybe he should expect to find a zombified Tony Stark sitting in a bathroom stall, waiting to kill him. But, of course, there’s nothing. Yet, Peter can’t shake the feeling that there’s something there. Something, or someone, is waiting for him.

The feeling carves itself under his skin for the rest of the school day. He can’t walk anywhere without feeling like a pair of eyes is stuck on the back of his head.

The train ride is fine, albeit a bit traumatizing. He sees everyone as zombies now. It feels like they’re all looking at him.

His neighborhood is quiet, and the weather is a little bit warmer these days as he walks down the block. The weird feeling never goes away. It seems as though every person he passes is looking at him or talking about him. _What the hell is happening?_

He wants to call someone. Happy. Pepper. Anyone. But he feels like he can’t. His senses are screaming at every corner, and the more he walks, the stronger the feeling grows.

When Peter’s stomach starts to knot, he pulls out his phone and finds the number that one S.H.I.E.L.D. agent left for him. After the third ring, deafening static rings in his ear. So, he tries again, but as he presses call, his body stiffens.

_There’s something there._

Before he can react, an arm wraps around his chest and pulls him in while a hand clamps over his mouth. He tries to scream and break free as he’s dragged into a van. He’s flailing, breathing through his nose, and his body is thrown onto the floor of the van with heavy force. Once his head slams against the metal, he can’t see anymore. He can’t hear. He’s unconscious, but this time, he doesn’t dream. 


	8. the room

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter wakes up not knowing where he is.

He doesn’t know how it continues.

Everything is dark, and then it’s not. Everything is bright.

Peter thinks his fingers look weird. All mushy and slimy–– _whoa_ , is he a frog? No, no, they’re normal. His hands are normal, but they’re huge. They look like giant mallets—someone made his hands into giant mallets! How cool? He has mallets for hands now, and he’s already accepted it. Maybe someone will make his toes into scissors, like Peter Scissortoes. That’s sure to be a smash hit with Tim Burton.

His fingers are moving through time and space at a thousand miles per nanosecond. It’s fast, and then it’s slow, and it’s fast again, and Peter watches them so intensely before he succumbs to the heaviness in his eyes. Everything is dark again.

* * *

His head feels like an atomic bomb waiting to explode. Heavy. It’s so heavy. He opens his eyes, but he can’t keep them open for very long before his skull splits. And from somewhere, he can hear a clicking—he’s not sure how often it happens. Twice a minute or once every twelve, or maybe even eighty times a second. He can’t tell.

For the times he can pry his eyes open, all he’s greeted with is a harsh blinding light, one that he confuses with heaven. He’s probably dead. _Oh, shit. Is he dead?_ The longer he thinks about it, the more he realizes he’s not. He can feel a sheet beneath his hands. He can feel an ache pressing against his head, and _God_ , he’s so tired. He doesn’t want to wake up, but he keeps trying until the light no longer looks as bright anymore.

All the while, he feels like he’s floating. He feels like he’s on a cloud, soaring over mountains and brushing the atmosphere with his fingers.

His fingers—he can see his fingers. They’re normal-sized and healthy, probably sticky if he wants them to be, and there’s a slick white band around his wrist. Huh. That wasn’t there before. He trails down his arm with his eyes, following his veins until he reaches the inside of his elbow, and an IV is stuck there like a threading needle in a pillow. That’s new, too.

Peter can’t lift his head without it throbbing and splintering, and he wonders if he broke it—if he split his head wide open and now he’s in some hospital room waiting to be fixed. He lifts an arm toward his head, and it takes centuries to get there. Some gauze. Not too much. He doesn’t feel too good.

He finally notices a man in a white coat to his right. He has vials of something on a tray below him. Wait—is that Peter’s blood? That’s a lot of blood. The man doesn’t look at him as he labels each tube with a small sticker. That’s too much blood.

Peter’s drifting. The clicking sound echoes in his ears again. Before he slips back into a dreamless sleep, he casts his eyes down toward the name tag stuck against the doctor’s coat pocket. Incoherent words. Nothing makes sense. H.A.M.M.E.R.? Weird.

And then Peter is out like a light.

* * *

He feels a bit more the next time he wakes up. He feels his toes, and they’re not scissors, which is good. And his hands are still normal. He feels a strange exhaustion overwhelm him, one he’s never felt before, not even when he was first bitten and couldn’t get out of bed for three days (back then, it had also felt like someone lit his entire body on fire; he thought a vampire bit him instead of a spider). The good news is that he’s in a bed and can sleep if he wants, but he knows it’s not his bed. It’s not his pillow or his blankets, and he can tell he isn’t anywhere near his own room. He doesn’t know where he is. He just wants to sleep.

But sleep suddenly means a lot less when the voices cut through. He sees nothing, but he hears some things. Garbled words. A mess of a strung-together language that sounds pig-Latin mixed with old English, and Peter can only pick up a few things of what the strangers say.

Someone is calm, and someone is loud.

The calm one says something like, “too much… we can’t allow… procedure will continue.”

And then the loud one’s voice vibrates through Peter’s spine. He can hear it well. “It will do more harm than good!” they say, and Peter wonders how harm could ever be considered good.

He doesn’t consider that they could be talking about him.

Their voices are drowned out by the clicking sound again, and once it dies out, the voices don’t return. Peter musters up enough strength to pull his torso forward, but the metaphorical atomic bomb goes off in his head.

He passes out before he has the chance to willingly fall back asleep.

* * *

_Click_.

Peter opens his eyes without preparing for the light, but he’s pleasantly surprised. Maybe he didn’t open his eyes after all. The room is dark—or is he just sleeping still? He grazes his fingernails against the bedspread, and it’s rough beneath his touch. He can feel. That’s good. He pinches his thigh through a strange material. He can feel that too, but what is he wearing?

It’s the first time he realizes he has a cannula stuck up his nose. He tugs it out, bothered by how cold it makes his nose feel, and a jarring beep echoes throughout the room. It’s a small room. He can see tiny reflections of light bounce off of flooring tiles. A small awning window leaks moonlight into the room, and beside him, a heart monitor displays a bright green 62. 61. 64. 70. 73.

_Where is he?_

When he sits up, his head aches again, but he can wangle enough strength to push through the pain. Once he does, it’s no longer as bad. He knows to avoid any sudden movements.

He reaches for his temples, feeling the thin gauze and the bandage behind his head, and moves his hand down to his chest where a hospital gown is draped over him. Oh no. _Oh no_. He needs to get out. He needs to find May, find Happy, find _anyone_.

Peter remembers the doctor. He remembers the badge. H.A.M.M.E.R.

He removes the pulse oximeter from his finger, and the monitor beside him beeps again. All of the lines, including the oxygen levels, have flatlined.

 _Click_.

The clicking sound comes from beside him. An IV drip and a—what is that? Morphine? Only one of the drips is connected to him, and he knows, by the feeling in his bladder and in his head, that it is not the morphine drip. With one strong tug, he pulls the IV and its sticker from his skin. It’s a pain worse than the one underneath his skull, but he ignores it, pulling a case off of a pillow and wrapping it tightly around his elbow. The blood already begins to seep through.

He doesn’t care. He needs to get out of there.

Through small huffs and gentle cries of pain, he swings his legs over the edge of the bed and hoists himself up. As soon as he stands, he falls. He’s lightheaded, slightly woozy and definitely suffering from severe vertigo, but he tries again. He stands and falls. He stands once more, stumbles a bit, and falls. _Okay, Peter, one more time._ He pulls himself up off of the tile, breathes in deep, and stands tall. He feels a bit more balanced.

But when he hobbles toward the door, nausea hits him in full force.

He presses his forehead against the metal surface and evens out his breathing. The room is spinning, the room is spinning. He can feel the bile climb up to his throat, but he swallows it back down and sways. The nausea quickly subsides.

He’s not wearing anything but a hospital gown as he makes his way into a dark hallway. It’s empty and cold, and there are a few lights flickering down the corridor. They reflect off of the stone walls and the large piping along the ceiling. This isn’t a hospital. He’s not in a hospital. There’s no nurse’s station or a lovely old lady asking patients what they would like for dinner. This is the exact opposite of a hospital. It’s like a bunker.

Peter doesn’t know how he got there. He doesn’t know _when_ he got there. Maybe it’s been days or months. He can’t think of the past, and he’s not worried about the future. He only wants to break out, and that’s what his instincts are telling him.

He steadies himself along the rocks beneath the pipes and follows them. His skull still feels like it might break open, and the bloodied arm has fallen limp against his side. He’s unbalanced and a bit dizzy as he wanders to who-knows-where.

He doesn’t know much, but he knows what has been done to him. The heaviness in his limbs and the swirling shapes speak loud enough for him to know that he’s been drugged—some way or another. And it feels better than it had, but it still doesn’t feel good.

The more he walks, the more lost he becomes. He’s not aware of his surroundings whatsoever. He can only sense the rock wall beneath his right hand and the occasional pulsating in his brain. He can see the greenish-hue of the flickering lights guide his path in front of him. Lastly, he can hear the growing voices from somewhere ahead, and he— _wait._ Voices aren’t good. Voices are not good at all.

Peter’s hand finds an edge in the wall, and he moves his body toward the opening into yet another hallway. This one is even darker; he can hardly see a thing, yet he keeps moving despite the tricks his senses are playing on him. He can’t even sense danger, not in the slightest, but he knows it’s all around.

“Hey.”

He glances up, tired eyes squinting into the lowlight as a figure walks toward him. He can recognize the white coat. A doctor.

“Hey, you,” they say, slowly walking toward him while Peter gains control of his footing. “Stop. Stop right there.”

But Peter doesn’t. He keeps walking, and he feels stronger with each step. He feels _anger_ with each step. He doesn’t know why he’s there or what’s happening with him, but the anger is impalpable. It’s something he’s never experienced before. When he approaches the doctor, he doesn’t even hesitate. Peter swings, and the man falls to the floor.

There’s not a moment to lose as Peter, breathing through tight lungs, bends down to check if the man is unconscious. He is, but he’s alive—which is good. Peter doesn’t want to kill. No amount of anger would justify that for him. So, he takes the man’s coat and the ID badge clipped to his pocket and takes off down the hall.

Peter feels better. He’s feeling significantly better. But it doesn’t quite dampen the panic building inside as he becomes more aware. He wishes he had his suit, then he would be unstoppable.

He has no reason for the doctor’s coat, to be fair. The common hospital gown is always uncomfortable, and frankly, he’s just cold.

The hallways feel endless. There are no landmarks, nothing to guide him toward another room or another escape. The small signs along the walls are too hard to read in the dark. When he turns again, another figure enters his view. Their side profile faces him, and a gun sits propped against their chest. Peter pads toward them without an ounce of worry or fear overcoming him.

He knows what to do. His senses are coming back slowly each passing minute.

The guard—whoever they are—notices Peter after it’s too late. They lost their time to open fire on him as Peter kicks behind their legs and pulls the gun from their grip. In one swift movement, he strikes the guard on the side of their head with the blunt end of the weapon. They collapse in an instant, just like the doctor. Damn, Peter forgot his own strength. Once again, he checks to make sure they’re okay.

As it turns out, they had been guarding a room. It’s the first room Peter has come across since his initial escape so many minutes—Hours? Days? Who knows—ago.

There’s a swipe key beside the door handle, and he tries the doctor’s badge to see if he can get in. It’s a success, so Peter glances around the dark hall and slips in before letting himself hesitate. He wishes this was a dream. He wishes he could wake up.

The room feels oddly familiar as he steps inside. It’s cold and empty like the halls, but it’s loud. _So_ loud. Mechanics whirring and odd, bulky technology screaming in the distance. He doesn’t want to move; it feels like a weight is holding him down. Out in the halls, he felt little fear, but in here, he just feels sick.

He keeps his eyes locked on the center of a room. A giant tube, a chamber, is sitting there calling his name. Peter doesn’t like it one bit, but he wobbles up to it, perching himself on some metal step as he tries to peek inside the tiny window on top. It’s frosted over, but if he focuses hard enough, he can just see enough of a—

He falls back onto the ground, heart pounding in his chest. No. _No_. _No, no, no, no—_ He coughs up a sob and clutches at his chest. It’s not real. It can’t be _him_. It can’t be real.

Peter collapses to his knees. His body aches, and he wishes he were back in that goddamn bed. But then there’s a hand on his shoulder. He doesn’t think much about it until a low voice says:

“Hello, Mister Parker.”

Something is poked into his arm, and then the room fades into darkness.

* * *

He feels drunk.

He’s never been drunk before, but if he had ever been, he imagines that it would feel like this. His vision is glossy and stained with white dots, so he attempts to blink them from view. While his head doesn’t hurt like it used to, he feels dizzier than anything. Dark shapes start to form around him. There are things tied to his wrists and ankles.

A blurry face sharpens above him, and a devilish grin is the first thing he sees. And then a pair of piercing blue eyes. The main is in a suit, a nice suit with a pressed jacket and a thin black tie. There are doctors and other men in suits behind him.

“Hey, Peter,” the man says, voice gruff and soulless. “It’s okay. We’re your friends. Don’t worry. You can keep resting.”

Peter’s eyes cast down to the badge pinned on the lapel. H.A.M.M.E.R.

He looks to the other men’s badges. H.A.M.M.E.R. The doctor’s badges. Once again, H.A.M.M.E.R. He feels the strange anger rise, but before he can break free of his restraints, there’s that feeling in his arm again. And he fades.

* * *

He thinks it’s nighttime again by the time he comes to. He’s not sure how long he’s been there, but he hasn’t been trying to keep track. All of his memories are melding together; he can hardly feel his own body anymore. Odd sensations float around him, and he’s sweaty. He’s so sweaty. It falls in droplets on his forehead. Every beat of his heart feels like a knife to his chest. All he wants to do is sleep and sleep. But he _can’t_.

There’s a reason he’s here. There’s a reason why he feels so wrong.

 _Tony_.

The ice.

Peter remembers learning about cryostasis once or twice. He remembers hearing about the Winter Soldier. He remembers that it was used by HYDRA.

But this is H.A.M.M.E.R. He can’t give up. He can’t let them do anything to— _Tony_ , my God. They have Tony. Tony is alive. Tony is there. Peter has to go find Tony, or he has to escape. He has to do something. He has to leave. He has to get his suit. He has to heal and come back. He has to be okay. He has to save Tony. He has to save Tony.

Peter rips the restraints on his wrists in an instant, and the ankles are an easy second. His breathing is labored and hard as he rises to his feet, fingers balling into fists while he starts toward the door. There’s a doctor standing in his way. Before he can think, Peter marches toward her, but she gets her kick in first. Literally.

“Relax,” she says calmly as Peter stumbles back over to the bed. “I’m here to help.”

His eyebrows knot together, and his chest radiates with the pain from the force of her foot. “What?” he breathes out. He finally realizes how dry his throat is. “H-help? Wh—”

“I’m gonna help you.” Her voice is monotone as she speaks, and her expression is cold. “Get up. Come with me.”

Peter wants to question her, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t care by this point—he’ll believe anything and anyone as long as he can feel okay again. It’s like his body has been put through a wringer. He wants a glass of water and a handful of Advil to ease his pains.

“Get up,” she repeats, a bit more sternly this time, “unless you want them to wipe your memory, then by all means.”

He shakes his head, eyes widening while he shakily stands back up. “No, no. I’m up.”

She nods. “Follow me.”

From the pocket of her coat—a coat she most likely stole from another doctor around here—she pulls out a gun, and Peter can barely react before she’s opening the door and stepping into the hall. She checks to see if the coast is clear and puts the gun back into her pocket.

“Okay,” she says, nodding for him to join her in the hallway, “come with me. Keep your head down.”

He finds his balance quickly, allowing her to lead the way through the dark corridor. Their movements are rushed, and Peter finds himself having to catch up to her after every turn.

“Why’re you helping me?” he asks, and she glares at him from over her shoulder.

“You weren’t a part of their plan,” she answers, entering through a doorway that leads to a stairwell, “but you were a compromise they could live with.”

He jolts at the sound of the door shutting behind him as she pulls him up the stairs. “They? Y-you mean—H.A.M.M.E.R.?”

“Yup.” The doctor, or, whoever she is, pulls her gun out again and keeps her eyes straight ahead.

They reach a landing, and while Peter tries to pause to keep his nausea from spiking, she enters a door to the next set of hallways.

“I thought they were working with S.H.I.E.L.D.,” he says, and he finds it hard to keep his voice down. He still feels all weird and out of whack. He has no idea what was administered to him.

She laughs briefly, and he almost wishes he could have seen the smile. It’s gone as soon as it came.

Questions brew in his head, unable to be filtered while the lighting in the hallway grows a tad brighter. It no longer looks as though they’re underground, but the facility is upsetting. It’s haunting. Tall brick walls, and he feels small.

“What’d they want with me?” Peter asks, and the next question slips before it hits his own brain, “what’d they want with Tony?” He can’t understand the weight of it yet. It’s like whatever is in his system is prohibiting him from those emotions. It’s like he can only be scared or angry.

“I can’t explain it all now,” she says. “I know you’re curious. You’ll find out soon enough.”

They reach a door, and she turns to look around in case anyone is chasing after them.

Peter keeps his eyes on her, mumbling out a defeated, “but, why is he _here?_ ” He isn’t sure how he means it.

She meets his gaze, pushing on the door handle to reveal a thick forest outside, and says, “because H.A.M.M.E.R. didn’t do what they were asked.” A few voices can be heard from behind them. A beat later, she asks, “can you run?”

He can’t feel his legs due to the cold air, but he’s able to keep a fast pace beside her through the dense trees. The branches and twigs feel like knives against the bare skin of his feet, and he swears he’ll run into a trunk in a matter of no time. He doesn’t feel well enough for this kind of endurance—he just doesn’t have a choice.

It’s been a few minutes—Hours? Days?—and they finally reach a clearing and a dirt road. The moon is high in the sky, illuminating the ground well so Peter doesn’t accidentally trip over a snake. He doesn’t like snakes.

Ahead of them on the road sits a car, and the woman rounds it and settles inside without a word. Peter assumes that he should get in too. As he buckles, she speeds off down the road. He doesn’t know where they’re going, and he doesn’t care. He’s just happy to be out of that place. He’s happy to be alive.

 _But Tony is still in there_. _They have to turn around. They have to save Tony._

“Who are you?” Peter asks the woman.

She doesn’t glance his way. “Maria Hill,” she says. “No more questions.”


	9. the unraveling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter gets to go home.

It continues in a silent car.

This is all unreal to him—he doesn’t really think he’s alive at the moment. He’s not confident in his own brain or senses to tell him what is and isn’t reality. He hasn’t been conscious long enough to understand the difference. And the discolored gauze shaped around his head is enough proof to remind him that something had seriously gone wrong.

He sees his reflection in the side-view mirror; it’s something straight out of a horror film. Flushed, pasty skin and rich dark circles beneath his eyes. Death had perched itself on his doorstep, but it must have decided to play a little game of ding-dong-dash. Why would anyone willingly do this to someone?

For the most part, he feels like he’s forgotten most of everything. It comes back in hazy snippets, and his head aches too much to try to remember the details. But he remembers the ugly things. The plot points. The more important images obstructing his ability to find peace with his freedom. Frankly, the concussion hardly prevails with the amount of pain puddling in his chest.

Whatever he saw, he wants to convince himself otherwise.

Maria hasn’t spoken a word since they left; Peter hasn’t made any effort to either. He thinks they’ve been on the road for at least an hour now, but he can’t read the clock. His vision is still too murky, although the concussion is more at fault than anything by this point. He feels fine otherwise, just in shock.

For a while, Peter watches the scenes change from outside of the window. The sun is rising to the left, and it’s decorating the sky with a comforting lavender blue. He wishes he could be in a lavender field right now, feeling the sun and feeling the breeze like it’s the start of the best summer ever. Peter can’t remember if it’s actually February or March. Maybe it’s April—he doesn’t know.

He slowly starts to recognize the world around them. There’s the road he takes to head towards Pepper’s old place. There’s the crummy gas station he stops at to pee while May buys him a Pop-Tart for the ride back. There’s the Budweiser billboard and the McDonald’s and advertisement for SplashDown Beach. They’re only a little ways upstate, and Peter is relieved.

He does that for a while—look for what he knows. It helps him feel calm. It helps him feel a bit closer to reality for a change. It reminds him that once he passes these landmarks, he’ll be home, and he’ll be safe.

But what continues to bother him isn’t the gown he’s wearing or the bloodied gauze on his head. It’s not the way he looks in the mirror or the lack of shoes on his feet. It’s the silence. It’s the unanswered questions. Because Peter has a lot of questions. He has a lot of emotions conflicting with one another, hindering his ability to fully grasp the severity of _what the hell had happened_. Of what he saw.

Eventually, as they enter into upper Manhattan, he strikes the match within himself. He offers up enough strength to ask, “are you ever gonna tell me anything?” to the woman behind the wheel.

Maria turns to give him an odd look. It’s like she pities him, feels sorry for him. Feels _bad_ for him. “What do you wanna know?” she asks, voice softer than he remembers it being earlier.

“I—” He swallows his words down. He doesn’t know how to translate his thoughts, and all he can mumble out is, “Tony.”

“That’s a great question,” Maria replies with a hint of sarcasm.

“Is he—?”

“Alive?” She glances at him again. Her gaze makes him feel his age. It makes him feel small. “Yeah. He’s alive.”

Peter doesn’t understand. _He doesn’t understand_. Peter leans forward on his knees and takes a few deep breaths. He doesn’t understand. He saw Tony _die_. “How?”

“It was an accident,” she says, hardly emoting. The sky outside lightens with each passing second. “Project Interface gone wrong.

“Project Interface?”

She nods. “A complete restoration of intelligence and memory. They wanted to preserve his knowledge. Put it on a chip and make some AI. He was the first recipient—if that’s what you would call it.”

Peter feels the questions bubbling within him. He feels the curiosity, and he can’t feel anything but. “So—” Every word is accompanied by the sensation of gasping for air. His speech is slow. Too slow for Maria. “Why is he…”

“Well, that’s just it,” she begins, the corners of her lips turning down slightly. “H.A.M.M.E.R. is a subdivision of S.H.I.E.L.D.—they’re a recent addition. Everything about them is practically unknown; some S.H.I.E.L.D. agents don’t even know of its existence. H.A.M.M.E.R. told S.H.I.E.L.D that it was a mistake—an accident—and that Stark’s resurrection was never meant to happen.”

Peter isn’t sure how to digest the information. There’s a broken thread at the bottom of his gown. He wraps it around his finger and ties it tight to make himself feel something. “And they believe that?” he whispers.

The way she looks over at him is full of uncertainty. Like she knows she has already said too much. “There’s a past to S.H.I.E.L.D that not everyone knows about, kid. Let’s just say there are some things that are no longer in use that H.A.M.M.E.R. now has access to.”

He keeps fidgeting. His body is crying for something to alleviate the anxiety. “I-If it wasn’t an accident, then why did they—”

“They want to use him as a weapon,” Maria explains. The way she speaks it makes it seem like he was supposed to know that. As she checks the rearview to merge into another lane, she says, “and S.H.I.E.L.D doesn’t know about that.”

“What?”

“But he’s not ready,” she states. “It isn’t going according to plan.”

Peter’s staring at her, jaw slackened and eyebrows tugged together. “How do you know all of this?”

Maria smirks, but it’s small. “It helps to have a few identities.”

He sits back, trying to relax as everything is unloaded all at once. She doesn’t mean to overwhelm him—well, he knows little about her; maybe she does—but he trusts her. He trusts her judgment and everything she says. But he feels so _empty_. Vacant. It’s all surreal.

“Does—does Pepper know he’s alive?” Peter mutters, scratching at his wrist where a thin white band still sits. There’s a bruise underneath his elbow where an IV once was. It’s sickly, blue and green and purple, but the hole where the needle had been is practically nonexistent.

“Yeah, she knows.”

“Then why would she agree to this?” he asks as his voice cracks.

Maria seems unamused by this point. She was most likely hoping for an entire ride of silence. “She didn’t,” she answers. “She agreed to Project Interface. She didn’t agree to the rest.”

The sun is starting to peek out from over the horizon. It shines through the trees along the highway, and it gives Peter something to look at while his thoughts weigh too heavy on his shoulders. But now, he feels a little angry.

“Why isn’t she doing anything?” he questions a lot louder this time. “Why isn’t she mad? Why’s she just letting this happen?”

Maria raises her brows. “Jesus. You’re chatty.” She relaxes her shoulders and adjusts her grip on the steering wheel. “She only knows what S..H.I.E.L.D knows, all right? They assigned H.A.M.M.E.R. to rehabilitate him. She thinks that’s all they’re doing. Clearly, it’s not.”

Peter says to himself, “then Happy must know, too.”

“Who’s Happy?”

He shrugs, lowering his head. “Doesn’t matter,” he says. He wishes he could allow himself to feel. Instead, he’s drained, and he’s afraid to go home. And he can’t stop playing with his fingernails. He can’t believe that any of this is real. And Tony— _Tony_. He’s alive. Holy shit. He’s alive. But not in the right way.

“What?” Maria asks after a moment. It’s like she could read the sudden shift in his thoughts.

Biting at his lip, he whispers to her, “is Tony gonna be okay?”

She thinks for a moment, and for the first time, she gives him a genuine smile. It’s small, almost too small to see, but it’s there. “Yeah, kid, he’ll be all right.”

Peter doesn’t ask any more questions as they enter the city. He admires the oranges and yellows reflecting off of the thousands of windows above. There’s beauty in a city so dirty and gray, but it can only be spotted at just the right times.

In Brooklyn, Peter realizes that he is slowly starting to remember a lot more about the underground place (he doesn’t know what else to call it, so he settles on that). He remembers a lot of stumbling and a lot of falling. His bruised knees are proof of that. And he remembers how Tony looked in that cryo-chamber, behind the ice and behind the thick glass separating them. Zombie-like. As if he had never truly been alive.

Peter can finally read the clock on the dashboard. It’s a little past seven in the morning when they arrive in Queens. They’ve fallen back into silence, but it’s not as uncomfortable as it had been before. It’s an understanding silence.

Maria asks for his address at one point, and a little while later, she pulls up to his apartment and asks, “this you?”

“Yeah,” he utters. A shiver rushes over him. He presses his hands between his knees and glances at the building, but he doesn’t make an effort to leave.

“Peter.”

He looks back over at Maria.

“You don’t need to worry about Stark,” she says to him. “We’re gonna get him out of there. Nick and I—we’ve got the whole thing covered.”

Peter’s eyes widened only slightly. “Nick—Nick Fury?”

“Nope.” Maria shakes her head, and as serious as she can be, continues, “Saint Nick. Santa Claus is gonna help save Stark. We’ve hired his elves for assistance.”

Peter is able to manage a small laugh. It only feels partially genuine, and then his smile dies. “Does—does S..H.I.E.L.D know about any of this?”

She gives him a reassuring glance. “We’ve got it covered. Keep an eye out. If we need you, we’ll come to you.”

“If you need me…”

“That reminds me—” Maria twists around and reaches behind her seat. A second later, she pulls out a plastic bag, turns back toward him, and drops it in his lap. Through the thin plastic, he can see a pile of red and blue.

His suit.

“S.H.I.E.L.D had your suit to wipe their information from its memory,” she explains. “They were gonna return it, but once H.A.M.M.E.R. got their hands no it, there’s no telling if you would have ever gotten it back.”

Relief. He feels relief. “Thank you,” he breathes out, almost afraid to touch what is his. “For this. For saving me.”

“Yeah.” She nods and presses her lips together. “Well. See ya.”

Once he leaves and shuts the car door behind him, he turns to wave goodbye, but she’s off in under a second. The engine roars down the street until it fades away.

Peter is suddenly aware that he’s alone. He’s stood in front of his own apartment in a hospital gown, and all he wants to do is scream.

The front door to his apartment has never looked so foreign. When he raises his hand to knock, he stands there like a statue, scared and unmoving while a new feeling builds in his chest. What happened to him? Where did he come from? Why does home no longer feel like home? And how long has he been away? Peter bites his lip, inhaling sharply as he knocks his knuckles against the wood.

He can hear shuffling and things dropping from the other side. May is in front of him before he can take another breath. She almost looks like him—tired and broken; she’s been grieving his disappearance. At first, her eyebrows are knitted together like she’s angry, but then she glances down. She sees his state. She sees the look on his face. She sees the building tears and the tremble in his lip.

She lets out a gasp of disbelief and pulls him in tight, arms wrapping around his shoulders. Her hand is cupping the side of his head while she kisses the top. He can feel one of her tears slip onto his skin.

“Peter,” she says, trying to smile when she pulls away. “Oh, my God. Oh, my _God_.”

And she hugs him again.

He doesn’t think he’s crying. He doesn’t know if he’s showing any emotion at all, but he’s starting to feel it. It’s taut, stretching his heart open until the feelings are ready to tumble out. They’re searching for their tipping point.

“What happened?” she asks as she sways them gently. “What happened?”

“May,” he whispers, and he can’t stop his voice from cracking. He’s about to break. “How long have I been gone?”

She looks at him, eyes big and sad and nothing like he’s ever seen them. “A week,” she manages to say while wiping stray tears. “You’ve been gone a week. We’ve—we’ve had everyone looking for you. Peter—” She lets out a long heavy breath before setting her hand on his cheek again. And once again, she tries to smile. It’s heartbreaking for him to watch. He wants her to smile. He never meant to hurt her like this. “I-I need you to tell me what happened. Okay?”

He nods. “Can I shower first?” he asks. “I probably smell.”

She laughs, and he thinks, _‘mission accomplished’_ while she proceeds to nod as well. “Yeah. You can shower, stinky.”

He meets her on the couch afterward, heart heavy and eyes a bit glassy while he thinks of what he’s going to say over and over in his head. And speaking of, the head pain is manageable, but there are moments where it returns. He found the cut from when he hit it; it healed up just fine. The bruise on his arm has already begun to turn yellow. He covers it with a sweatshirt before walking out to explain what he can.

There are still hazy moments. He hardly remembers the escape with Maria whatsoever.

May smiles at him as he sits beside her on the couch. She has kind eyes. She waits for him to speak up first. The minute he tries, he already feels like he’s about to lose it completely. He keeps his gaze locked on his hands so he doesn’t have to watch her facial expressions.

His thoughts unfold in the form of words. Untamed sentences and questions spew, and May listens without speaking up so he can continue the story as best as possible. There are missing points—he knows, but the information is no longer there. He tells her about S..H.I.E.L.D and H.A.M.M.E.R., and he tells her about where he was taken. He talks about the blood samples and the Morphine drip, the doctors and the lack of remorse all over their faces. And then he talks about his first chance to escape, the violence and the anger he felt at the time, but the chain of events is a little cloudly in his brain.

When he gets to the room—when he gets to talking about Tony—Peter’s voice wavers. He finally breaks. He’s choking out sobs, desperately clinging to breaths while they strain his lungs. His body trembles as it falls onto May. She sets his head on her lap and runs her fingers through his damp hair, and he just cries. He cries until he thinks he can’t cry anymore.

Maybe it’s been seconds, minutes, or hours. Maybe it’s been a whole day. But they sit there together in silence, and he can’t do anything but cry.

The tears are slick on his cheeks, but the urge has finally faded. He stares straight ahead at a bookcase as he says, “he was there. Tony. He was there.”

“Peter?” May’s voice is soft. “What are you talking about?”

“He’s alive,” Peter says, swallowing hard. His eyes hurt. “He’s there. Alive. I saw him.”

She’s quiet for a moment, and she removes her hand from his hair. “That’s impossible.”

“No, it’s—” Peter sits up, fingers grasping at the couch cushion when it all finally hits him. “He’s alive. Oh, my God, May. He’s alive.”

May reaches a hand out to calm him. “Okay, I need you to keep explaining things, Peter. I need you to tell me what you know.”

He’s breathing fast and short, and his brain ignites. “I need to tell Happy. I need to tell Pepper. I need to—”

“Peter, okay, _breathe_ ,” says May, setting her hands on his shoulders so she can stable him and keep him seated. “I need you to breathe. This is a lot, okay? Whatever you saw was a lot. It’s okay to take your time.”

He shakes his head a few times. “No, no, May. They deserve to know. Tony—he’s being held there. Frozen. To be used a-as a _weapon_. And S.H.I.E.L.D doesn’t even know. They’re gonna let it happen without realizing, and it’s gonna be played off as some—as some _accident_. I can’t just sit here and not doing anything. I need to tell someone. I gotta tell Happy and Pepper. I gotta tell them. They need to know.”

Slowly, she nods. She’s worried, but she trusts him. “Okay. Okay. Have you slept? Have you eaten?”

He manages a small smile. “Can I have some _Reese’s Puffs_?”

“Sure,” she laughs out, her eyes rolling. “You can have some _Reese’s Puffs_.”

Peter asks Happy to meet him somewhere. Anywhere. A park, behind a movie theater, or even another country if the man prefers. Peter can’t do it over the phone. He can’t tell Happy every single horrifying detail through a thin box. It doesn’t feel right.

There’s an empty playground a block or two away from his apartment, so he texts Happy the address and waits with anxiety burning in his chest. Just a few simple texts. Not a ‘hello’. Not a ‘how are you’. An address and ‘please come as soon as you can’. And Happy is there in thirty.

He’s slow to approach, eyes wide and locked on Peter before he quickens his pace. He’s in a suit, like always, and the wind carries the tail end of his jacket. “Peter? My God. Where—where’ve you been? Are you all right? We’ve all been looking for you everywhere, and—”

Peter falls into Happy. It’s a quick hug, one that catches the older man completely off guard.

“Peter, what the hell happened?” Happy asks. “Where were you? No one had heard a thing, a-and then your aunt was telling me that you came home in a hospital gown? What? Where were you? What happened?”

Peter bites the inside of his cheek. “You might wanna sit down, Happy,” he says, motioning toward the bench beside them.

“Sit—sit down?” Happy furrows his eyebrows. “What the hell am I about to hear? What do you mean ‘sit down’?”

Peter shuts his eyes tight, lowering himself so he can sit on the bench and keep himself from crying. Ever since the car ride with Maria, everything has sunk in. It’s all heavy. And he feels sick. “I just need you to hear me out,” Peter says weakly, trying to calm the ache in his lungs.

Happy sits down beside him.

“You already knew this,” Peter begins, sniffing. “I _know_ you already knew this. That Tony is alive. But where he is—where they took me—it’s not what anyone thinks. It’s not what you think.”

Happy is still looking at him with confusion, worry, and any emotion in between. “Peter, what the hell are you talking about?” he asks.

“S.H.I.E.L.D.” Peter takes a breath. “And this new thing, H.A.M.M.E.R. They’re a division of S.H.I.E.L.D. They brought Tony back to life on purpose.” It’s still hard to talk about, even with the information now permanently etched into his brain. Peter takes a few seconds to gather his thoughts. “The whole thing—it wasn’t an accident. They wanna use him as a weapon, and they—I don’t know what they wanted with me.”

Happy doesn’t say anything. He can’t react. He can’t speak.

“And S..H.I.E.L.D doesn’t know anything about what they’ve done.”

“How’d you find all this out, Peter?” he whispers.

Peter shrugs lamely. “Someone named Maria Hill. She broke me out. Helped me escape and brought me home.”

A look of recognition flashes over Happy, but it soon fades into concern when he meets Peter’s gaze. “Are you okay?”

_No._

Peter shakes his head, eyes watering, but before any of the tears can fall, Happy pulls him into a hug. “I saw him, Happy. I saw him.”

“We’re gonna figure this out,” Happy says a few moments later. “We are. You, me… Pepper. We’re gonna figure it out. We’re gonna talk to people.” He lets go of the hug to look at Peter again. “It’ll be okay.”

This time, Peter feels concerned. It tightens in his forehead. There are tears in Happy’s eyes, too. “Are _you_ okay?”

But before his expression can crumble, Happy manages a smile. “I will be,” he says, “and Tony will be, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> phew so good to get that all out amiright


	10. the breakout

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter is on the team to help break Tony out.

It continues with, “Parker, do you copy?”

It takes two weeks to get to where they are. To get a team assembled, to let everyone know what is happening right under S.H.I.E.L.D.’s nose. After two weeks of spending each day trying to get better and trying not to think of what he’d seen, Peter finds himself perched in a tree like a bird. _God_ , he _feels_ like a bird. He wishes he could be a bird—soaring through the sky without care, flying from place to place without having anywhere to be. He wonders what would have happened if a radioactive bird had bitten him instead of a spider. _Do birds have teeth? Wait—do spiders even have teeth?_

Maybe he can ask that Falcon guy for his own set of wings or something.

“Parker?”

“Y-yes, ma’am,” Peter nearly shouts, regaining his balance and holding a hand to his chest. _Jesus_ , he almost forgot where he was for a second. “I copy. I copy.”

“Good.” It’s Maria’s voice in his ear. “Give us recon.”

Below him, down at least fifty feet, sits a fairly small building. It’s the facility Maria Hill had found him in two weeks ago, and now he sits overtop of it, ready to break _back_ in. He can’t lie, he’s a bit scared, but he’s recovered. Only snippets of memories remain, but the rest has been drowned out by the excitement over the mission. Peter can’t think of anything else but bringing Tony back in one piece. Now he’s ready to feel like Spider-Man, to feel like an Avenger.

It’s just a flat building. Small and flat with probably a few more stories below. The architecture is pretty sick, Peter can’t lie. On the side of the building, there’s a great big S.H.I.E.L.D. emblem, and it makes him roll his eyes. The building is surrounded by grass and the biggest sea of trees he’s ever seen; he’s never felt more in tune with nature. He really _does_ wish he was a bird.

“Uh, I see four guys,” he says, touching his ear so the comms can pick him up. The setting sun is a bit bright, but he thinks he can see fine without Droney’s help. Karen has already identified all of the men by name. “All armed at the front. They look cold. Man, H.A.M.M.E.R. should really invest in some coats for these guys. All that funding for frostbite? Geez.”

“Now’s not the time to worry about outerwear, Parker,” a voice cuts in. _Holy shit_ , it’s Nick Fury. Somewhere in the distance, he sits in a Quinjet, waiting there in stealth mode while his team does most of the dirty work.

Peter will gladly do all of the dirty work if it means working with people _this_ important.

“Yes, sir,” Peter says. “Sorry, sir.”

“Hill, what’s your status?”

Maria’s voice comes crackling through, “we’re approaching on the left. Five-hundred yards and closing. All nine of us.”

“Nine?” Fury asks. “What the hell happened to the tenth?”

“Ten’s daughter is in a school play,” Maria replies. “Couldn’t make it.”

“Hey, can I ask something?” Peter says, adjusting his positioning on a branch so his feet won’t fall asleep. Wow, he’s really high up. “Can I ask why I’m up here? Like, can I come down now?”

“I thought spiders liked being up high,” Fury says. Although his tone is joking, somehow it’s still intimidating.

Peter sighs. “Not this one.”

“Just keep your position, Parker,” Fury continues. “You’ll come down when we need you.”

 _Sure, right, of course,_ Peter thinks, staring down while a few leaves drift toward the ground. Too high. Way too high. _Dammit_ , why did he agree to this?

“That’s fine,” he says to himself. “This is fine.” As he speaks, the wind picks up, brushing the branches and causing him to slowly lose balance. His grip on the trunk isn’t strong enough. “Uh, it’s getting a bit dicey up here, guys. I think—shit.” His hand slips, so he grabs out for another branch. “I think—whoa, _whoa._ ” The branch snaps in two. And when he grips another, that branch also snaps. A few birds fly off. He pulls himself back up on a thicker branch, but falling is no longer the issue. “Oops.”

All four of the men down on the ground look up at the trees, and a few seconds later, their guns are raised and aimed at Peter. Shots ring out right away.

 _“Parker_.”

“Looks like we’re in action now,” Peter mutters, quickly leaping from his spot and shooting off some webbing toward the tree beside him.

Time to be a bird.

He pushes himself from the tree and allows himself to free fall, and the web wings take it from there. Bullets fire his way, and he dodges them as he glides through the air. He lands before the men—a bit roughly—and webs the guns, tossing them to the dirt while the men prepare to take him on.

 _Oh,_ he should have thought this through. Four-on-one—not so easy.

“Is anyone close by?” Peter shouts into the comms. He tries to web up one of the guy’s legs, but his body is shoved into. “Hey, _watch it.”_

“We’re closing in, Parker,” Maria answers, “keep your distance.”

He lets out a small huff while he continues throwing _and_ avoiding punches. He’s got one of the men webbed up on the ground already. “Gonna be a little tricky,” he mumbles, tossing a punch and successfully knocking another guy unconscious. “Where’d you guys even learn to fight? Acting school? Karen—let’s use taser webs!”

With two men down, Peter can easily web up one of the others. Eventually, he’s down to his last guy. This one is clearly the only one that took a few boxing classes back in college. He’s putting a damn good fight, but Peter is hardly out of breath as he eventually kicks him down cold. He leans down and dusts the dirt off of his ankles.

“Parker,” Maria speaks from behind him.

He jumps, twisting around before putting his hand up to his forehead once he sees her. “Ma’am.” He salutes. _What?_ Did he just _salute_ her?

Along with Maria, seven S.H.I.E.L.D. agents approach. They’re padded up to their chins. There are supposed to be nine of them including her—right?

She glances around at the men on the ground and nods, half-impressed. “Nice work. But there’s gonna be more.” She puts two fingers over her ear. “Sam, you here yet?”

“Sam?” Peter asks.

“Sky’s a bit choppy today,” another voice says into the comms. _Whoa_. Is that—

“Got all these guys yourself, kid?” someone says to Peter, and once again, he’s startled. It’s the dude with the metal arm. And he got a haircut… looks good.

Maybe Peter is a bit too jumpy today.

His eyes go wide, and it probably looks ridiculous from outside of the mask. “Holy shit,” he breathes out. “Uh, yes—yeah. All me.”

Bucky smiles, but he doesn’t say anything else.

“They were expecting us,” Maria says, eyeing the few agents sidling up beside her. Peter doesn’t think he knows any of them. “There will be more inside.” And then Maria looks at him. “I guess you’re coming with us.”

Peter smiles; luckily, no one can see it.

She presses her fingers back to her ear. “Sam?”

There’s a long, drawn-out s _woosh_. Flying in from high in the sky is the Falcon himself. Captain America. Peter watches in awe as Sam lands gracefully, adorning a brand new red, white, and blue suit while his wings fold in.

“You’re late,” Maria says.

Sam smirks. “You’re all just early,” he says, looking around. “What’s the situation? Why’s he here?” He points over at Bucky, but his tone is more amused than annoyed. Finally, Sam looks at Peter. “Hey, Spider-Kid. What’s up?”

Peter waves a hand. “Oh, not much. Just had a burrito for dinner, so I’m feeling a little—”

“Okay, Nick,” Maria says loudly, “we’re heading in.”

Fury’s voice overwhelms the comms. “Heads up to the headstrong: expect anything,” he begins. “Don’t think it’ll be easy. By the looks of it, H.A.M.M.E.R.’s got more allies than we know. They could already have a few _personage_ weapons on their hands already.”

Peter winces and frowns. He knows he means Tony.

“Keep your guard,” Fury continues. “Get Stark, and then get the hell out.”

Maria and a few other agents head toward the front doors and place a device on it.

“Miss Hill—” Peter starts as the agents turn before the device detonates. “—all due respect, but shouldn’t we figure out another—”

Before he can finish, the device goes off, and the agents file in through the door. The siren begins to wail from the inside as they enter. Peter stands there, a bit nervous and slightly thrown by the sudden actions of the crew. He feels unprepared and unable to move.

“Okay,” he whispers to himself, “or we just go right ahead. Yup. Sure. No one listen to the guy who was locked in this hell for an entire week.”

Bucky turns to face Peter before entering the building. “You have any info that we should know about then?”

“Uh… no… ”

Bucky laughs and tilts his head toward the door, ushering Peter inside while the flashing red lights surround them.

It’s dark otherwise. Dark lobby, dark houseplants, dark hallways. Peter feels his insides churn at the eerieness of it all, but he can’t dwell on it long before a few H.A.M.M.E.R. agents approach. He’s not near the action, yet the echoing gunshots tell the story. Bucky takes Peter by the arm and leads him a different way.

They turn down halls, chasing down a different fight while the metal-armed man points his gun toward the sky. Peter feels like he’s being dragged on a field trip by an older brother. He feels like he’s being told to sit and let the adults do the talking.

At one point, they join back up with Maria and other agents. She says to everyone, “if you can find a stairwell, get down to the first sublevel. We’ll need all of the help we can get.” Her eyes meet Peter. “You remember the layout down there?” she asks while the agents, including Bucky, start off in a new direction.

“N-no, ma’am—”

“Good,” she says, breathing heavily. “Follow me.”

A few moments later, she kicks the crunch bar of a nearby stairwell door. It was an unnecessary action, but it’s badass nevertheless.

“Wait, no, I—don’t you want someone else?” Peter asks hurriedly as they start down the steps. “Like Sam? That other guy with the arm?”

She doesn’t answer. Three H.A.M.M.E.R. agents face them with their guns ready, but Maria pounces first, kicking the chest of the agent in front while she grabs the guns of the other two. Peter stands there and watches the entire ordeal, and in under a minute, she has all three of the agents passed out on the steps.

“ _Whoa,_ ” he whispers.

“Come on.”

They barely make it much farther before they’re face-to-face with something… odd… on the first sublevel’s landing. Through the darkness and the creepy red lighting, Peter believes it's a woman in a jumpsuit. It looks a lot like Black Widow’s, he thinks, except this one might be—green? Orange? Purple? It’s hard to tell. But what he _can_ see is the scar down the right side of her face and the scarily sharp fangs glistening in her smile. Holy shit. Peter has to fight a vampire.

“Maria,” the woman says slowly.

“Ophelia,” Maria replies, ice in her tone.

“Viper, actually.”

Maria folds her arms, and Peter can see the hatred in her stare. “Not tired of infiltrating S.H.I.E.L.D. yet? Seems like you’re kind of obsessed.”

Viper smirks. “Why would I be?” she asks. Her voice is cool and low. “The fun’s just getting started.”

Maria dives in for the first strike, but the Viper-Ophelia, or _whatever_ , is faster, using a thin whip from her belt to tie Maria’s hands together and shove her against a wall.

“So good to see you again,” says Viper, and the fight ensues as Maria wrangles herself free and kicks the other woman away.

And Peter just stands there. Helpless. He needs to do something. He needs to act.

Maria is knocked to the floor, and Peter is quick to jump in, webbing himself up to the ceiling so he can leap down, but Viper tosses him back against the stairs. She smiles at him, stalking toward him while Maria hoists herself back onto her knees behind her. She raises her gun and shoots Viper in the leg. For the finishing touch, Peter webs her up against the wall—he makes sure she can’t heckle them on the way out either.

He offers to help Maria up, and she reluctantly agrees.

“Viper,” she mutters as they enter the first sublevel, “stupid name.”

He laughs dryly. “Yeah, totally.” He actually thinks the name is cool.

It’s even darker—if it were possible—as they head down the hall. He remembers the rock walls. He remembers the pipes and the unsettling arrangement of medical supplies scattered along the corridor. He remembers how it felt like the world’s biggest maze.

They come across an intersection, and a doctor and another H.A.M.M.E.R. agent scurry off the opposite way without seeing the pair.

“Agent Washington,” Maria says. _Is she smiling?_

The doctor keeps going, but the agent stops and turns slowly.

She smiles, too. “Agent Hill.” She looks at Peter and raises an eyebrow. “Spider-Man.”

“H-hey—hi.” He waves. _Why did he just wave?_

Agent Washington takes her ID badge off of her jacket and hands it over to Maria. “You’ll be needing this. You can thank me later.” And without another word, she starts back down the hallway.

Maria seems unfazed by the encounter, carrying off down the hall with Peter stumbling to catch up to her.

“Who was that?” Peter asks. “Do you know _everyone?_ ”

“Former S.H.I.E.L.D. operative,” Maria replies without batting an eye in his direction. By this point, they’ve completely drowned out the alarms wailing throughout the building. “She’s the reason we even know so much about H.A.M.M.E.R. in the first place.”

“Double agent?”

“Something like that.”

Before the can get any farther down the hall, an abundance of H.A.M.M.E.R. agents approach with pointed guns, boots loud against the concrete while Peter and Maria step back. It’s at least ten-against-two, and that won’t cut it.

Maria whispers quickly into the comms, “I need all hands on deck if possible. All hands on deck for sub-level one. Does anyone copy?”

The agents start to approach faster, so Peter adds in a squeaky, “please!”

A shield flies by a second later, right in between them before it clambers into two or three of the agents and knocks them out cold. While Bucky and a few other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents approach, the fighting turns physical, and the team of H.A.M.M.E.R. agents becomes one with the floor.

“Thanks, Cap.” Maria nods at Sam.

He kicks up the shield using his foot and straps it into place. “Don’t mention it.”

Peter is smiling like an idiot. Still, he’s glad no one can see. “So cool,” he mutters.

“Spider-Man,” Sam says. “Remember which room Stark was in?”

“Uh—no,” Peter replies, laughing nervously at the end. “I was drugged. I probably thought I was in Narnia.”

“What’s Narnia?” asks Bucky.

Maria interjects, “we’ll split up again. Sam and I will go this way. Parker, Barnes—you go the other way.”

She and Sam are off quick, and Peter finds it hard to move. He doesn’t know why this entire mission has made him feel so useless. By now, he just wants it to be over.

“Coming with me, kid?”

He turns to Bucky. “Sure, yeah, Mister Barnes, sir.”

Bucky laughs—Peter doesn’t know why; it’s not like he’s being funny—and shakes his head needlessly at Peter’s words.

They walk down the hall in silence, listening to gunshots and conversations over the comms while the creepiness level continues growing higher and higher. Peter feels like he’s stuck in some Indie video game that makes him shit his pants at three in the morning (Ned probably talked him into it anyway). He feels like he has to take a bathroom break _and_ a snack break—cheese puffs sound really good right now. He wonders if Bucky has ever had a cheese puff.

They turn down a hall that seems fairly empty, but as they walk, Peter senses something off. Something wrong. He says to Bucky, “you keep goin’, I wanna check something out.”

He can hardly see Bucky furrow his brows in the dark. “You sure?” Bucky asks.

Peter nods. “Yeah. Positive. Go ahead.”

He waits until Bucky is out of sight before crouching down. Before him, slumped against the wall in the pitch black, a doctor sits alone. Peter kneels beside him. The doctor whimpers, watery eyes shining with red reflections from the alarms while he holds his hands against his stomach.

The man is crying, but he’s trying not to make a sound. Just barely, Peter can see a name sewn onto the white jacket.

“Hi,” he whispers, smiling. “Doctor McGraw? Is that your name?”

The man nods.

“Hi,” Peter says again. He thinks for a moment, and then he removes his mask. “I’m Peter. Nice to meet you.”

Peter moves the man’s hands out of the way and presses his own against the torso, applying pressure to a fatal wound that’s coated with blood.

The man’s lip trembles violently. He probably knows Peter. He probably was the one to take all of those vials of blood so many weeks ago. But it doesn’t matter now.

“You got a family, Doctor McGraw?” Peter asks as he tries not to think about the liquid staining his suit. It feels cold against the fabric.

The man nods again. It’s weak. “A-a wife,” he says breathily. “Two daughters.”

“Yeah?” Peter hears his own voice crack. _Stay strong, Peter, stay strong._ “Do they—do they live nearby?”

McGraw shakes his head, and a few more tears roll down his cheeks. “Th-they’re grown.” Even with it being so dark, Peter can see that the man’s skin is paling. “Sarah lives in Washington. Owns a law firm.” McGraw shakily smiles as he speaks.

“Wow!” Peter exclaims. “You’re kidding! I bet you’re proud.”

McGraw’s smile grows. “Georgia—she lives—” He gasps a little. “—she lives in London. Just got married. Has a two-year-old.”

“You’re a grandfather?”

McGraw’s smile soon starts to falter. “M-my wife…” His eyes cast to the right of Peter.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Peter says, pressing down a bit more on the wound. There’s hardly a reaction in the man as he does so. “It’s okay, sir. I’m here. Your wife? Just—just keep thinking about her, all right?” Peter can’t stop his own tears from falling. “Those kids of yours—they love you. They’re proud of you, too. You’re gonna be okay.”

“P-Peter?” the doctor whispers, lips parting. Like he knows Peter more than Peter realizes.

“Yeah,” Peter breathes out. “I’m here. Promise. I’m not leaving.”

But McGraw’s eyes have become distant. Empty. “Thank you” are his last words.

Peter doesn’t remove his hands from the man’s torso. He stares at him, unmoving and in disbelief. He _can’t_ move. He can’t feel his hands. If he lets go, he’ll see the blood. He doesn’t want to see the blood. He didn’t kill the man, but he watched him die.

Peter fits his mask back over his head. His cheeks are damp from his tears.

He’s forgotten about this part of the job. About the lives lost, about the responsibility. About the feeling that, even though it’s not his fault, it somehow feels like it is. And it hurts worse because he never knew the man. They crossed paths for a few moments in time, but Peter was the last person he saw.

After exhaling a long, deep breath, Peter looks down at the floor and closes his eyes.

“We’ve got Stark.” Maria’s voice crackles through the comms, pulling Peter out of his moment of rest. “Rendezvous on the southwest side of the building in four minutes. Parker, what’s your status?”

He lets out another breath, and it shakes in his chest. Now it’s time to save a life.

“Sorry,” he mumbles. His gaze falls back to the doctor. “On my way.” He stands, taking off down the hall so he can figure out how the hell to get out of there alive.

“Nick, are you ready?” Maria asks.

“Ready?” Fury cuts in. “I’ve been ready for twenty minutes. Hurry the fuck up."

Peter feels like he’s wading through molasses. He’s been down that hallway, and he thinks he’s been down the next one after it. He can’t remember where he is or where he came from. He just needs to get out, and he needs to _cry_.

He finds an empty stairwell, a Viper-less one, and works through the pain in his shins as he leaps up two at a time. The flashing red and the blaring alarms have begun to make him anxious, so when he gets to the ground level, he runs as fast as he can until he reaches an exit. The sun hasn’t even finished setting outside yet. He takes one step onto the grass and sighs.

The sounds of the Quinjet guide him toward the back of the facility where a few S.H.I.E.L.D. agents stand around. They watch Sam, Bucky, and others hoist a large chamber into the jet, and Peter suddenly freezes.

Tony’s in there. They have him. They have Tony.

Maria approaches Peter at a leisurely pace, her hands clasped together behind her back. She has a cut on her forehead and cheek.

“Y-you should get some medical attention for that,” Peter says. Her presence still makes him feel younger than he is.

“‘Tis but a scratch,” she replies, but there’s no amusement in her tone or expression. If it’s a movie reference, he doesn’t get it. She looks him down. “What happened with you?”

He raises his hands, glancing at the blood on them for a prolonged moment before looking back at her. Now that he can see the stains, he never wants to look at them again. “Um—it was—”

“Hill, you comin’?” Sam calls from the Quinjet.

She nods to him and then at Peter. “Good work today, Parker. You’re a good asset.”

He hardly hears a word she says. “Wh-where are they taking him?”

“Wakanda,” she answers. “We have no idea what they might have done to him. He’ll be fixed up there—as best as he can be.”

“Will he be able to come back?” Peter asks. He keeps his eyes on the Quinjet behind her, watching as Bucky and Sam walk down the ramp and back onto the grass.

Bucky starts heading their way.

“Sure,” Maria states calmly. “It’ll take some time. But he’ll be back. You’ll be one of the first to know.”

Peter nods. “Thank you.”

She gives him a small smile and turns to walk away without another word.

Bucky walks up to Peter only a moment later. “You okay there, kid?” he asks, stuffing his hands into his pockets, even the metal one.

“Yeah,” Peter breathes out. He’s tired of the mask. Tired of breathing through spandex. He pulls it off and reaches up to run his fingers through his hair, but he stops. The blood. He can’t. There’s still too much blood.

Bucky seems to notice. He frowns. “You sure?”

This time, Peter isn’t sure. He shakes his head and sniffs.

“You stopped to help that man,” Bucky says. “Didn’t you?”

“Y-you saw him?”

He nods, shrugging. “Only when you did. Had a feeling you knew what you were doing.” Bucky watches Peter intently, eyebrows knotting once Peter lets a tear fall. “Not your fault, kid. You gotta keep telling yourself that.”

“I know,” Peter whispers. “I know. I couldn’t save him—there was no way I could’ve. I just feel—”

“Responsible.”

“Yeah.”

The Quinjet takes off in the near distance.

“You got a ride back home?” Bucky asks.

“Maria says Agent Garcia was on carpool duty,” Peter says as he fiddles with the mask in his hand.

Bucky chuckles, clasping a hand onto Peter’s shoulder as he leads him away. Away from the building. Away from something he’ll spend the rest of his life trying to forget. “You can ride with me and Sam. It’ll be fun. Promise. You’ll wanna tuck and roll after the first ten minutes.”

Peter allows himself to laugh, too. “Yeah. Okay. Thanks.”

“Sure, kid.” Bucky gives Peter another smile, and then his expression shifts. “Now, how does this whole gimmick of yours work, ‘cos I’ve been trying to wrap my head around it for years. Does the web stuff come out of you? And what about the whole climbin’ on walls thing? Sam thinks it’s suction cups, but y’know, with what I’ve seen, I’m not so sure—”

“It’s all me,” Peter says, still laughing. It’s becoming more and more genuine. “No suction cups. The web fluid isn’t from me though. That’d be gross.”

“ _No suction cups?_ You’ve gotta be shitting me. You’re neat, kid.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was... incredibly fun to write i cannot lie


	11. the first day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony comes home—but it's just not the same.

It continues on April 6th, the day Peter gets the call that Tony is coming home.

He’s been away for a month, and in that month, Peter has learned a few things. One, Pepper never actually sold the cabin upstate—she only needed to be closer to Tony for a little while in case S.H.I.E.L.D. informed her of an emergency. They never did. Two, she and Happy had the chance to visit him in early February under certain jurisdictions. Pepper doesn’t like to talk about that day. As it turned out, that was the only time S.H.I.E.L.D. had checked in with H.A.M.M.E.R. to see what they were doing with Tony. Pepper had packed up and moved closer as soon as she heard that his recovery had been “stunted”.

“Tampered-with” is more like it.

Three, S.H.I.E.L.D. trusts too easily. Four, no one suspected a thing until Peter’s kidnapping, which kind of sucked because maybe _then_ he wouldn’t have been kidnapped. And five, the SATs are in one month, and he totally hasn’t studied yet.

When Pepper calls him, it’s a warm Saturday afternoon, and her words are rushed. She wants him to be there, she says, because he deserves it. After what he’s done for Tony, Pepper thinks that Peter deserves to be one of the first to see him again. And he almost says no. He almost respectively disagrees and says it should be restricted to family.

Pepper assures him that he _is_ family. He should be there, too.

He buys her flowers again—daffodils, like last time—and makes the few-hour drive upstate. He’s been waiting for this moment since January, but he hadn’t even known it.

That’s one question that hasn’t been answered yet. The voicemail. And he has never told Pepper about it. He doesn’t know what she’ll say if he does.

“You don’t need to buy me flowers, Peter,” Pepper tells him as he walks through the front door. Her tone is light, and her smile brightens up the room. “Just having you here is wonderful enough.”

“I like buying flowers,” he says, situating himself at the counter. It’s fish taco night, and the scent of fresh lime overwhelms the air. He’s missed this place. “It makes me look good in front of the guys at Delmar’s.”

“Oh, does it now?” She laughs and places the bouquet in a glass vase.

Behind her laughter, he sees the Pepper Potts that chooses to repress her true emotions to ease others’ anxiety. She’s scared of what the next few hours will bring. Peter knows it; he feels the same way, too.

“In front of the guys, huh?” Pepper’s laugh quiets into a sigh. She hands Peter over a bowl of cilantro so he can begin to chop it.

Peter glances around the kitchen. It’s oddly quiet, and the breakfast table isn’t full of toys or coloring books. “Where’s Morgan?” he asks.

“She’s—um, she’s with Happy,” Pepper says a bit unsurely.

“Really?” Peter raises a brow. Why wouldn’t Pepper want Morgan to see her dad?

Pepper is in the middle of mixing the rub for the fish. She clears her throat and nods. “I didn’t know how to go about this,” she says. “What they told me was that his memory isn’t—it isn’t how—” She shuts her eyes and pauses for a few seconds. “I didn’t want him to not recognize his own daughter.”

Peter tries to figure out something to say, but he doesn’t have the time.

“She’s going to be five,” Pepper continues. “Five-year-olds don’t understand this stuff. She wouldn’t understand if she came running up to him and he didn’t react.” Through a sniff, Pepper takes a few breaths. “I-I need to tell him—to see if he remembers her—before they meet again. And I know it’s not fair—”

“No, Peter says. “I get it.”

If Tony doesn’t remember him, Peter doesn’t know what he’ll do. Why would Tony not remember things? _What the hell had been done to him to make him forget?_

“Are you sure I’m not invading?” Peter asks after a moment. “You haven’t even seen him yet, and I don’t wanna—”

“Peter,” Pepper says. Her expression tells him that she’s lost a lot of hope. “I want you to be here.”

He smiles, and then it falls. “I just feel like even Rhodey or Happy should be seeing him before me. I mean, they’re his best friends, and I’m—”

 _“Peter_. _”_ Pepper’s voice is stern, but it’s a bit hard to take it seriously as she holds up a fish fillet. “Rhodey, Happy, and I—we all saw him. In February, remember? It’s okay. I mean, that whole day wasn’t the most _ideal…_ ” She sighs.

It’s hard for her to talk about. Peter knows she feels guilty She didn’t know what Tony had gone through—he hadn’t even known. Whatever H.A.M.M.E.R. did to bring him back, it was torture, but they had wiped his memory of it. He wasn’t himself the day she visited. And after that, they could do whatever they wanted to him.

Bucky had mentioned something in the car the day they broke Tony out. He said that whatever they were trying to do to Tony, they had been successful in doing with Bucky. Peter still doesn’t quite understand.

He and Pepper aren’t sure what to expect. They aren’t sure what kind of physical and mental traumas Tony might have endured. They aren’t sure about how to handle what will come in the next few minutes.

When she places the fish in the oven, a jolt shoots up Peter’s spine. He thinks he may have confused the sound of the oven door with one of a car door, but he stands nevertheless, allowing his feet to carry him to a window across the home. He kneels down in front of it and watches as Maria Hill waits in front of the passenger side of a large black Suburban.

Peter’s stomach clenches.

Tony is slow to leave the car, not speaking a word to Maria while he stares at the home before him. He’s dressed in dark clothes and a sweater—whatever they gave him, it doesn’t look like _him_. And it’s odd to see him there, stepping on the pebbled driveway like he has so many times before. Peter has never seen him here. Peter hasn’t seen Tony like this.

He looks older than Peter remembers, grayer with dark, sunken eyes. The sun setting over the lake gives Tony’s skin an extra hint of tone, but Peter thinks he looks sickly. He looks broken. Damaged. Empty. Vacant. Confused. _Sad_.

Tony keeps gazing at the cabin as if he can’t believe his eyes. It’s like he can’t believe he’s home, or he can’t believe this _is_ his home. He looks at the window where Peter sits, and Peter hides, his heart thumping in his ears as he scurries back to the kitchen.

“Is he here?” Pepper asks, eyes wide and voice hushed.

Peter swallows, nodding as he goes back to chopping cilantro and slicing avocados.

The energy in the room shifts once the doorbell rings. Pepper rushes over, wiping her palms on her thighs before stepping toward the front door. He wishes this was easier. He wishes it was easier for her. Pepper only wants her husband back.

Peter can’t see into the foyer, but he doesn’t need to be close to hear. He sets his knife down and waits for the interaction to play out.

 _“Maria, hello,”_ Pepper says, and it’s so sweet, so genuinely kind, but he knows how she’s feeling deep down. Either she can’t stop looking at Tony, or she can’t even bring herself to look at all.

Peter doesn’t know what he’ll do either. It’s still hard to believe that a man who is supposed to be dead is stood just out of sight.

 _“Pepper.”_ Maria’s voice is firm yet sad. After all, she’s been in the car with Tony for quite some time; she’s seen the difference a few months can make, and she can only guess how Pepper might feel. They know each other. They worked together. They were friends.

There’s silence for a while. Inconceivable silence. Peter wants to imagine a hug. He wants to imagine tears and a great big reunion with kisses and unspoken things. He wonders if Tony knows that he’s there. And in that everlasting silence, he begins to hear footsteps.

Maria and Pepper enter his line of sight. They’re talking in the living room, close and quiet while Peter tries not to overhear. He holds his breath while Tony passes by them slowly. The same disoriented expression is still there, and he looks around the home at every lamp, pillow, and seat cushion until he finally glances over at the kitchen where Peter stands.

He meets his eyes, and he freezes.

Peter hasn’t taken a breath yet. He can’t say anything—but how can he? He waits and watches as the crinkles in Tony’s forehead even out. His lips part, and his eyes widen. It’s as if a moment of realization passes through him and vanishes. Only seconds later, his eyebrows furrow again.

All the while, Peter feels like a statue. He can’t move, breathe, or speak, but he can watch his former mentor try his hardest to remember the person standing in front of him—and then fail. Peter wants to scream his name. He wants to run over, grab him by the shoulders, and hug him as he did on the day he died.

The only thing that’s stopping him is uncertainty. There’s an unwillingness that Tony chooses, and instead of acting on the ounce of recognition he might have felt, he turns the other way.

And Peter wants to cry.

Pepper approaches from the living room before he can do so. She places a hand on Tony’s shoulder, and the man stiffens. His lips briefly tremble

“Tony,” she says softly, and his head turns toward her. When she speaks, his brows lift and his eyes relax. The tension in his shoulders loosens. “You remember Peter?”

Peter tries to smile. He lifts a shaky hand, waving it toward Tony as he says, “Hi, Mister Stark.”

Tony stares at him. Blank. Nothing. Whatever he had been feeling a moment ago is gone. He takes a deep breath and turns to Pepper.

Peter convinces himself that he saw tears in the man’s eyes.

“I think I need to lie down for a bit,” Tony whispers to her, jaw clenching and unclenching before looking back at Peter.

Pepper nods. “Sure, okay.” She frowns as she watches him leave.

Once Peter can no longer hear footsteps, he holds himself steady on the counter. _Don’t cry, don’t cry. Don’t cry in front of her._ He’s leaned over a half-sliced avocado with cilantro scattered around it. He knew it would be this hard. He knew it would hurt, but knowing it doesn’t make it hurt any less.

He hates H.A.M.M.E.R.—he hates them with every fiber of his being.

“I’m sorry,” Pepper says. She stays stuck in the same spot across the room. “I’m so sorry, Peter.”

He looks up at her, but she’s not even looking at him. She has her head down, face toward the floor, and the words she spoke to him makes it sound like she was the one who failed. It’s not her. It’s not Tony either. There’s no fault or blame.

Peter shakes his head and rushes over to her, letting a few tears slip out as she holds him tight. She holds him until the oven goes off and the smell of baked Cod fills the home. And after she returns from bringing Tony a plate of food, she holds him again. Peter is busy looking at the picture of him and Tony above the sink.

They broke him. They broke his Tony— _their_ Tony. They took something that didn’t need to be fixed and then broke it instead. Peter hates to think it, but he wishes Tony had never come back. He wishes they had kept him dead.

Peter was still learning how to live without him. He was still grieving.

When Pepper pulls away from their hug and smiles at him, Peter loses it. He loses it at the sight of the tears in her eyes, so he tears up, too.

If Tony barely knows either of them, then he won’t know Morgan either.

“They said it would take time,” Pepper mutters, brushing a few of Peter’s curls out of his face. “He’ll come back to us. Somehow. But I know he will. It’ll just take some time.”

Peter rubs at his eyes with the sleeve of his sweatshirt. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take,” he says, voice wobbling while he looks back at the photo of them together. They looked so happy. They truly were so happy.

As he glances back over at Pepper, a small sensation tickles the back of his neck. There’s no danger, but he knows that the two of them are suddenly no longer alone. Tony is listening. From the stairs, from the next room—somewhere. Peter doesn’t know, but he knows that Tony is there.

“We just have to be patient with him,” Pepper says with a smile.

Peter doesn’t know how she does it. He doesn’t know how she stays strong. He nods.

“ _For_ him.”

“Do you—” Peter takes a quick breath. “Do you think he knows me?”

Her eyebrows knot together and her lips pull into a frown. She doesn’t. “I don’t know. I-I wish I could give you an answer, but I just—” She sighs, and her eyes start to water. “I don’t know. I’m afraid he hardly even knows me.”

Peter shakes his head. “That’s not true,” he tells her—a small effort to make her feel better. He takes a few notes from her and smiles. “He could never forget you.”

She smiles, too.

And then he feels the need to tell her about what has been on his mind for months.

“I never told you about the voicemail,” he says suddenly, pulling his lips beneath his teeth.

“Voicemail? What about a voicemail?”

He stuffs his hands up his sleeves and walks toward his phone on the kitchen counter. He hasn’t listened to it in a few weeks, but he’s not afraid of it anymore. It’s been burned into his brain long enough—he’s numb to it.

“Before school started back up in January—” he begins, unlocking his phone and pulling up the audio file he saved from Karen. The _actual_ voicemail is still buried in his messages, but the quality lacks. “—I got this weird cryptic voicemail. It’s kinda hard to hear.” He hands the phone over to her. “But the more I listened to it, the more I thought it sounded—that i-it sounded like Tony. And it led me to pick up on a lot of hints that he could be alive. It led us to here. To right now.”

Pepper’s expression remains stagnant as she starts the recording. Once the static is accompanied by a voice, however, that expression shifts. Her eyes widen. Her entire body language explains that she might be hearing exactly what he wants her to hear. He taps at the countertop as she replays the audio a handful of times.

She sets the phone down. “Was he saying your name?” she asks, but before Peter can answer, there’s a creak coming from the stairwell. She shakes her head and sighs. “I—um, I’m going to go check up on him.”

Peter nods. “Yeah. Okay. I’m just gonna get my things ready to go, then.”

After she’s out of sight, he lets a few more tears fall. It’s going to get better, he tells himself. It has to get better.

“Peter?”

He’s been sitting at the breakfast table for thirty minutes now, scrolling aimlessly on his phone while waiting for Pepper to come back so he could say goodbye. He misses Morgan. He misses her cheerful company and the way she could make him smile without saying words. All she had to do was look his way, and then he’d become overwhelmed by pride. She feels like a sister to him, but he also feels like he doesn’t get to see her enough.

He hadn’t even heard anyone come down the stairs. He’d been too caught up in his thoughts.

“Hi.” Peter stands, slinging his backpack over his shoulder. His suit is in there—he brought it just in case. “I just wanted to wait so I could say goodbye.”

“Glad you did,” Pepper says with a smile. She’s stood at the entrance to the kitchen as he walks toward her. Her smile shrinks. “But before you go—Tony is in his workshop. He talked about you.”

Peter’s eyebrows raise. “He did? What’d he say?”

“He asked if it was really you,” she replies. “If you were really Peter.”

“What does that mean?”

She shrugs, pressing her lips together. “I don’t know. But he’s in there if you would like to find out.”

Peter hesitates, keeping his gaze on Pepper while she smiles and nods, assuring him that it’s okay to go in, even if he feels unsure. Even if he might feel like he shouldn’t belong in there. Tony must feel the same way. So, Peter nods.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay. Yeah. I’ll go do that. Thank you.”

She smiles, and he starts toward the living room. It feels like his heart has never been so loud before. It’s never beat so heavy in his chest. And he doesn’t think he could be walking any slower. Maybe he’s expecting some unworldly force to push him out of the way. Maybe he’s expecting to dust away again. He doesn’t know, but he keeps walking.

The air is still as Peter slowly opens the door to the workshop. He listens for the squeak of hinges and, hopefully, the typical banter between FRIDAY and Tony. But there’s nothing. Only the squeaky hinges.

When Peter walks in, Tony is sat in the dark with a few monitors lit up before him. He doesn’t make an effort to move—he sits there and stares at files upon files as if they’re meant to perform a circus trick for him.

“Mister Stark?” Peter’s voice is soft, but it’s the only noise the room can take on.

Tony doesn’t react. He doesn’t glance over or give him a smile. He just looks down at his hands on his lap.

“I’m sorry,” Tony whispers after a while, words cracking, and Peter’s never heard the man’s voice taper with such sadness. “I know you, I do. But it—” Tony lifts his hand—like he’s reaching out for something to say, and then he closes it into a fist and brings it up to his lips. He sits that way for a minute.

“They didn’t get to use me,” he says.

“They?”

Tony shakes his head. He still can’t look at Peter. “They never got to use me.”

“Mister Stark, do you mean H.A.M.M.E.R.?” Peter reaches over for a stool and pulls it up to sit, but he keeps a short distance away from Tony.

“That’s what everyone’s tellin’ me,” Tony mumbles, nodding. “They didn’t get to use me. I got lucky. I feel—I feel tremendously _un_ lucky.”

His face flashes with every single emotion possible, and Peter watches as he represses them all. It looks like Tony. It acts like Tony. It doesn’t feel like Tony.

“You’re—you’re Peter?” he asks softly, eyes gazing over at Peter.

Peter nods, mumbling out a small, “yeah.”

“Parker?”

He manages a smile. “Yeah.”

Finally, Tony smiles, too. _Relief._ “I know you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i rly didnt mean for this story to be rhodey erasure fuck  
> i usually write him when i'm only in tony's pov so perhaps he'll come in soon???? rip im so sorry rhodey i love u


	12. the truth is, it always gets better

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter finds out the truth about the voicemail that started it all. And, he gets to see Tony again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> don't worry i don't think this is gonna be the last chapter but i can't promise the next one won't be lol

It continues with turkey burgers and a moldy bag of carrots.

Peter has been listening to Ned rant about his rewatch of _Star Wars: The Clone Wars_ for the past twenty minutes, occasionally cutting in with a “yeah, totally” and a muffled “uh-huh” while he absentmindedly scrolls on his phone. He hears everything that Ned is saying, but it goes in one ear and out the other. There are too many things to read about on the news. Too many “ _Dying Man’s Cancer Cured Post-Blip”_ click-bait articles that lead one to think that the man’s cancer miraculously vanished, only to find out that scientists figured out a better form of treatment _after_ he died.

Additionally, there are too many texts popping up on Peter’s phone.

Pepper sends him updates when she can. He gets at least four in an hour, and at the moment, she’s texting him about how she wants to cry tears of joy. Tony remembers Morgan’s favorite foods. Almost every day, there’s progress. But Peter hasn’t heard another word about himself.

Nevertheless, he enjoys the updates. It uplifts his mood and helps with his motivation. It keeps him looking forward to the day ahead.

“—I mean, the whole scene with the continuous shot at the cyber center literally is just—” Ned makes a hand motion near his head along with an explosion noise. “My mind is still blown, dude. I’m just sayin’, the cinematography is off the charts. If you had even watched it, you’d know.”

“I watched it,” Peter mutters defensively, picking up a soggy fry but ultimately setting it back down. He’s _so_ ready for summer. “I agree.”

“I thought you said you hadn’t seen the last season,” Ned says. “We were gonna watch it together and then you bailed.”

Peter rolls his eyes. “I totally did _not_ bail, you just didn’t—”

Before he can finish his thought, his phone vibrates on the table. He jumps at the sound—it gets his blood pumping for a half-second before he looks down to check the caller ID. And then he’s just confused.

“You gonna answer that?” Ned asks.

“Uh—yeah.” He eyes the screen warily.

Peter doesn’t like getting phone calls. When it’s May or Happy, it’s fine. When it’s his school calling to say there’s a delay or a cancellation—absolutely fantastic. But an unknown caller or a phone number he doesn’t recognize spooks him out these days. He’s not worried about scams anymore. And he usually never answers the calls in case they leave a voicemail, but this time, he feels different about it. He didn’t think his “sixth-sense” worked like that.

“Be right back,” he utters quickly, rushing off down a hall with the phone still ringing in his hand. By the time he answers it, he doesn’t even get the chance to say hello.

 _“Parker.”_ It’s Maria’s voice. He hasn’t heard from her in a long while. _“Took you long enough.”_

“Hi?” Peter plugs his other ear as a small group of students walks by laughing. “What’s—what’s up?”

 _“I’m sending something over your way,”_ she says. _“It’s security footage from H.A.M.M.E.R.”_

He furrows his brows and heads down another hall once more students start to trickle through. The lunch period ends as another one is about to begin.

 _“Their files are currently under investigation,_ ” she continues, and for once it doesn’t sound like she dreads talking to him, _“and we’re still in the process of tracking down anyone who has been in cohorts with them. I’ll spare you the details. I do have to warn you, this footage might not be an easy watch, so watch it on your own time—not around others. But I know you’re still looking for answers. You’ll want to check this one out.”_

She ends the call soon after, and Peter is thrown off by the short encounter—if that’s what he should even call it. He didn’t even get to ask how her day was going. Only seconds later, a video is sent to him through his texts.

He rushes through the meandering students on their way back to class, but his idea is the exact opposite. After a few seconds of searching, he finds a janitor’s closet and ducks in there, wedging himself in between a mop and a shelf full of chemicals.

Peter has no idea what to expect. The footage could be of him for all he knows—Maria didn’t say. She probably assumed that she didn’t have to. He takes a breath and counts the seconds until the file loads. He presses play as soon as the button appears.

The video is dated from the 3rd of January of that year. It’s a grainy black-and-white recording, but he immediately identifies certain key objects in the room. There’s a bed in the center with an assortment of instruments on a tray beside it. And there’s a strange contraption at the far back that Peter can’t distinguish for the life of him. A doctor mosies about, writing things down and checking on tools, etc. On that bed in the middle of the room lies a patient, and Peter immediately knows that it’s Tony.

He knows it’s Tony because his right arm isn’t flesh. It’s metal.

For a few seconds, there’s nothing, but Peter already finds it hard to watch. He’s preparing himself for what happens next, holding his breath and feeling his heart pound like staccato notes in his chest.

Tony shifts ever-so-slightly—Peter has to rewind a few seconds to make sure he saw it. He stirs again, the subtle movements becoming more and more obvious as time passes, and the doctor is too engrossed in other tasks to realize.

Whenever this footage happened, it’s in the past, but Peter is still anxious.

Tony’s head tilts up, and he glances around at the room at the doctor, at the medical instruments, and at the weird machine stalking over his shoulder. The quality of the recording is too poor to determine the emotions washing over him.

He starts mumbling incoherently at first, and the doctor takes his time to notice.

 _“No, no, no,”_ Tony says quietly, sitting himself up, and the doctor runs over to hold him back. _“What’d you do—what did you do to me—”_ His voice rises.

It happens fast. The doctor tries to restrain him, but Tony seems to be stronger. He grabs the doctor by the shoulders and stands, shoving the man to the ground before stumbling across the room. There’s something on the table—Peter thinks it’s a phone, maybe the doctor’s—and Tony picks it up, swaying and tapping at the device while the doctor scrambles to his knees. He doesn’t go after Tony—he looks to be calling for help.

And help comes almost immediately. A few men hold Tony by the arms, others by the waist while he holds the phone up to his ear. It’s pure chaos as he pushes himself free, and they are quick to grab him again. The phone is jostled around for a bit, yet they can’t seem to pry it from his fingers as his screams fill the room.

Peter bites down hard on his tongue. He’s never heard Tony scream like that, but then it occurs to him—he _has_.

_“Peter!”_

Peter puts his hand over his mouth as his eyes start to water. Holy shit.

 _“Peter!”_ Tony screams once again into the phone. The men try to tear it out of his grip. _“Kid, I’m here! I’m at S.H.I.E.L.D. Can you hear me?”_ One of the men is successful in grabbing the phone as Tony shouts, _“I’m here!”_ and then it clambers to the ground.

A second later, one of the men sticks a needle into Tony’s arm. He falls limp, and the footage ends.

And Peter can’t let himself breathe even if he tried.

_Holy shit._

The voicemail was from Tony. There’s not a doubt, no hint of uncertainty or a possibility that it could have been from anyone else. It was from him. Of all of the people he knows, he called Peter. When Tony felt the most vulnerable, the most afraid, he called Peter.

He didn’t call Rhodey or Happy or Pepper. He called _Peter_.

It doesn’t matter that the message hardly came through on his end—Peter stills feels tremendously guilty. When Tony needed him most, Peter wasn’t there. If it were the other way around, he would have felt confident in Tony coming to save him. But Tony was trapped. He needed help, and he called for Peter’s help, but Peter wasn’t there.

Peter sits in the janitor’s closet for a few more minutes. He evens out his breathing and the trembling in his fingers before heading back into the hall. The students have all gone to class, and technically, Peter should be with them too. He can’t fathom the idea of sitting in Spanish with that video on his mind. Sure, Tony is alive and okay now—but if Peter had figured it out sooner, would he have been in an even better place today?

“Peter, where the hell did you go?” asks Ned as he hurries down the hall. He has Peter’s backpack around his shoulder. “Señora Byers is gonna kill us.”

Peter presses his lips together. “Sorry. Sorry, Ned. I—um, it was nothing. Just May askin’ me to take out the trash when I get home.”

“Isn’t trash day on Thursday?”

“Yeah, well—” He shrugs. “—we like to be early. I’m actually not feeling too well, though, so I think I’m gonna head to the nurse. Maybe lie down for a bit.”

Ned nods slowly, eyebrows rising. He doesn’t believe his friend for one second, but he doesn’t question it. “Okay. Yeah.” He takes Peter’s backpack off of his shoulder. “Just text me. Lemme know if you still want me to come over later. I can bring some Red Vines, and we can rewatch that episode of _The Clone Wars_.”

“Yeah.” Peter smiles. It’s the best he can muster up while Tony’s screams echo in his head. “Thanks, man. I’ll see you later.” He adjusts his backpack and starts down the hall.

“Tell Nurse Jacqulyn that I say hi!” Ned calls from down the hall. “Ask her how the kids are doing for me!”

“I won’t!” Peter calls back, chuckling and waving to his friend. As he turns around, his smile falls. 

He can’t wrap his mind around it—the video, the voicemail, all of it. Tony was brought back to life, someway, somehow, and the person he wanted was Peter. Tony called him for help. The first number he thought to dial was Peter’s. It doesn’t make sense, but not much does anymore. What Peter wants most of all is not clarity but the chance to know his mentor again.

And he just wants his mentor to know him, too.

* * *

Peter has been keeping track of the updates Pepper sends him.

_Tony seemed to recognize the picture by the sink. He smiled. Didn’t say anything, but he stared at it for a while. I think that’s a good sign!_

_He saw that picture Morgan drew of you and him. He asked me if it was Spider-Man. He asked me if you were Spider-Man. :)_

Peter really likes it when the updates are about him. They never used to be.

_He asked me what I was planning for Morgan’s birthday. I nearly cried. He remembered._

_Tony’s been cooking dinner every night. He keeps kicking me out of the kitchen when I try to help. It’s a nice change._

_He’s been talking to FRIDAY all day. Only hours ago, I found him tinkering on an old Iron Man suit. I can’t believe this._

_Rhodey came over last night for dinner. He wanted to see if Tony could remember some things from when they were in college, and it almost felt too easy. It felt like watching Morgan take her first steps all over again. It was so natural.”_

It has been a while since the day Peter heard from Maria. Ever since then, he’s prodded Pepper for more updates. He wants Tony to get better so the guilt can go away. Worst of all, Peter knows none of this is his fault, yet he can’t help but feel responsible for not catching on sooner. Pepper assured him that it no longer matters. What does matter is the fact that Tony is home and needs love and support.

And she’s right. So, Peter deletes the video. He never wants to see it again.

It’s only a matter of time before he decides to let the voicemail go, too.

With each new day, he fights the urge to go see Tony again. Peter tells himself that his mentor needs time. Time with his family. Time with his thoughts. Time to remember everything that was lost, but even then, there will be missing pieces. Peter keeps his distance until Pepper texts again with another update.

_He’s talking about a new design for a suit. A suit for you. I think he really wants to see you, Peter._

He hops in the car without a second to lose. He doesn’t know what to expect, but honestly, he can no longer think about the negatives. Not when the updates from Pepper are so continuously positive; he feels the need to be optimistic when she also is too. And it’s so hard to _not_ be excited when things are looking up.

It was quite hysterical, from the perspective of May, to watch her nephew run from room to room, gathering his things so he could head up to Pepper’s last minute. He had his suit draped around his shoulders, his backpack strapped to his front so he could shove an assortment of clothing into it. He kissed her forehand and left without asking if he could even borrow the car.

Now, Peter taps anxiously on the steering wheel as he passes through Tarrytown. He has the Iron Spider in the passenger seat and the other suit sticking out of the top of his backpack. Of course, he can’t stop to pee on his way unless he wants everyone at the gas station to figure out he’s Spider-Man. The damn case _glows_ , and it’s already past sundown. His face would be splattered on every news page by the next morning for sure.

But he’s not really worried about that if he’s honest. He’s more nervous than anything. He’s _so_ nervous, but he’s also so excited. It still feels weird even after all this time. Even after seeing Tony in person and talking to him. Peter grieved him for months. He doesn’t have to anymore.

Peter pinches his thigh through his jeans pocket when he knocks on the cabin’s front door. It will be fine. It’s going to be fine. Tony is doing better. He’s home and he’s with his family—he’s doing so much better.

Or maybe Pepper has chosen not to mention anything bad.

She answers the door with a smile and a hug. “Only took under three hours. I think that’s a new record for you.”

He chuckles as he steps into the foyer. “I kinda left when right you texted me. I hope it’s okay that I’m here. I know it’s late, and I didn’t wanna assume I could just stay the night, so—”

“Peter,” she says, narrowing her eyes. “You have your own room here. You can stay whenever.”

He smiles at her words. It’s nice to know that he has a home away from home. He’s never felt like that before. When he had a mentorship with Tony, they were all over the place. Peter hardly interacted with Pepper, but she treats him like a son now.

“I’m not sure when you ate,” she continues, “but there’s some mint ice cream in the freezer. Don’t eat the coffee frozen yogurt—that’s Tony’s. And he’s been in the workshop all evening if you would like to join him. I didn’t tell him you were coming, but I don’t think it’ll be a problem.”

Peter feels his heart twinge. _He’s too nervous._ “Has he—has he been talking about me much?” he asks. His palms are sweaty against the straps of his backpack.

“In the past few hours, he’s mentioned Spider-Man in every conversation,” she states, nodding, and she chuckles as she says, “so yes, I think you’ve been on his mind for quite a while. And I think it’s safe to say that he’ll be excited to see you.”

Peter lets out a shaky breath.

“You okay, Peter?”

He nods. “I’m great. Just great. Nervous, but great.”

Pepper smiles. “He’s doing a lot better,” she tells him. “Some days are rough, but being here has really helped. Seeing you will help, too.”

“Thank you,” Peter says. “Thank you, Pepper. I’ll be back for that ice cream.”

After that, he starts in the direction of the workshop before he can hesitate. With the Iron Spider in one hand and his backpack around his shoulder, he follows the warm lighting of the home until he reaches the door. He allows a short breath and steps inside.

Tony is messing around with a hologram over a table when his head snaps up.

“Hey,” he says, grinning. “Going through old stuff. Look at this—Mobius strip. I wonder what the hell I did with it” He twirls the hologram, and it flutters around, blue reflections dancing of metal and nearby suits. A moment later, he lets the hologram drop, and the only light in the room is the light from the table.

“Mister Stark,” Peter whispers, a small smile growing on his lips.

“That’s me,” Tony replies. He points at Peter. “Mister Parker.”

Peter nods.

“Yeah, Pep’s been talkin’ my ear off about you,” Tony explains, tapping a pen against his wrist while he rounds the table. He glances down at the Iron Spider in Peter’s hand. “Whoa, would ya look at that contraption? Did you make that?”

Peter looks at the suit and back up at Tony. “Actually, you did, sir.”

“Sir?” Tony’s forehead wrinkles. “Are we on those terms? I thought we’ve at least established a last-name-basis.” His eyes meet the Iron Spider again. “I made that?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow.

“I don’t like wearing it a lot,” Peter mumbles, setting his backpack down on the floor. “It’s great—intuitive and cool—but… yeah.”

Tony hums. “Well, if it doesn’t fit right, I’m sure I could figure out a way to—”

“No, no, it fits fine.”

“What’s wrong with it?” He picks the suit up and sets it down on the glowing table. As he does so, Peter catches a glimpse at Tony’s right hand. _Metal_. “I’m rather proud of this one. Nanotech isn’t fast-fashion, y’know; it comes at a price.”

Peter feels like it shouldn’t be this easy—talking to Tony. It feels like Tony, but at the same time, it doesn’t.

“It’s, uh—” Peter bites his lip, toying with the idea of telling a lie or the honest truth. He doesn’t know if Tony remembers what happened that day. It’s hard to know if he ever will. “Nothing’s wrong with it. It’s hard to associate it with a good memory, s’all.”

Tony knots his brows together. He doesn’t speak for a few moments. He’s too busy looking at the suit and then back at Peter as if he’s searching for the past between them. “What’s this bad memory?” he asks quietly.

Peter clenches his jaw and exhales, and he feels like he can’t look at Tony as he remembers that day so vividly in his head. He never knew what his mentor went through afterward, and he most likely never will. Even with him standing right there—he doesn’t know.

“The day you gave me the suit,” Peter mumbles, running his finger along the edge of the table beside him, “is the day we all took on Thanos, and we lost, a-at least _I_ lost. And then—”

“What you mean you lost?”

“I died,” he says. “I died in this suit.”

Tony nods, expression twisting. There’s an unreadable emotion in his features that gives Peter an ounce of hope. Maybe he does remember it, at least slightly.

“And then I came back,” Peter continues.

“You came back.”

“And—”

“You came back, and we were all there,” Tony says. He’s wearing the most intense thinking face imaginable. He repeats, “we were all there. Me, you, Cap, everyone.”

Peter nods. The corners of his lips twitch. “Everyone.”

Tony glances back up at Peter, eyes wide, and he looks as though he’s receiving a Raven vision. “Yeah,” he whispers. His lips part. “That was—”

Tony cuts himself off, setting his forehead in his hand while Peter’s heart stammers in his chest. Has he said something? Are there certain subjects he’s supposed to avoid? Peter watches as Tony struggles to find his words, and all he can do is wait.

“That day, _God_.” Tony grimaces and looks at his right hand. “You died, and then it was—it was five years, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

He frowns, stretching and bending the metal fingers over his palm. “That’s how this happened.”

Peter nods again. “Yeah.”

Tony keeps staring at his hand. It’s like he never realized it was there—like he never cared to know why. Maybe he’s never wondered about the scars trailing up the side of his neck. Maybe he remembers his old life, but maybe he hasn’t needed to wonder.

“Pete,” Tony whispers. A smile grows on his lips. “It’s so good to have you back.”

Peter’s chest fills with a warmth he hasn’t feel in a long time. His cheeks ache from smiling so wide. “It’s really good to have you back, too, Mister Stark.”

Tony reaches over, laughter filling the room as he ruffles Peter’s hair and pulls him into a tight hug. It only lasts for a few seconds, but it’s something that Peter never realized he needed until now.

“Are we gonna work on some stuff or what?” Tony asks as he pulls away. “You’ve got a suit, I’ve got some tools, and FRIDAY has a killer playlist that she’s been dyin’ to play. Ain’t that right, honey?”

_“I guess so, Boss.”_

Tony grins. “All right then, kiddo, let’s get to work.”

Peter is happy. He’s so happy. “Oh, by the way, Mister Stark—that Mobius strip? Time travel. You pretty much created time travel.”

_“I fucking what!?"_


	13. the voicemail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter has his Tony back.

It ends when it’s June.

Like any summer, a typical student may foster the idea of staying up past midnight with friends and drinking wine coolers by the coast. There are days when the sky is so beautifully blue, it’s hard to resist stepping outside and basking in its colors for hours. Grass allergies are in their prime, and the streets are hot with the stench of urine and pavement, but Peter loves every minute of it. Instead of staying up late and drinking wine coolers, his average day is spent hung up (literally) on the next best idea he can find.

From increasing the amperage of his web-shooters to fabricating sleeker web wings, every hour is full of “what comes next?” for Peter, and luckily for him, he doesn’t have to rely solely on his own mind. While he tinkers around with his Spider-Man suit in one corner, someone else is seconds away from starting a fire with an Iron Man suit in another.

“ _Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British politician sex—”_ Tony’s singing fills the workshop, voice powering over Billy Joel’s while he messes around with the nanobots for a gauntlet. Instead, he has them form the shape of a T-Rex. _“—JFK, blown away, what else do I have to say?_ Take it away, Mister Parker!”

Peter chuckles and shakes his head. The sight of Tony using a wrench as a microphone is enough to make the front page of any magazine, but instead, Peter snaps the picture in his head. He doesn’t carry on singing the chorus, and quite frankly, it’s mostly because he doesn’t know the words.

“You don’t have a single fun bone in your little body, do you, kid?” Tony asks jokingly, and before Peter can answer, he continues, “— _we didn’t start the fire. No, we didn’t light it but we tried to fight it._ Hey! _Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again—”_

“I have tons of fun bones,” Peter pouts. He’s in the middle of heightening the reaction time on his web-shooters’ triggers. It’s a task that would take Tony five minutes, but it’s been taking Peter five days. He’s only slashed about .05 milliseconds—which is better than nothing, but not great. “Karen thinks I’m funny.”

“Well, clearly if Karen thinks so, then it must be true,” Tony remarks with a sprinkle of sarcasm. Meanwhile, the nanobots form the shape of a spider on the table. He grins. “What’s she up to these days?”

“She’s my AI, Mister Stark,” Peter says.

“Of course, I knew that.”

Peter rolls his eyes and smiles. There have been moments like that. Moments were Tony likes to convince himself and others that he knows _exactly_ what they’re talking about. By this point, Peter has learned that Tony doesn’t like asking questions. He likes it when people tell him things, that way, he’s not embarrassed to have forgotten.

“You got a pentalobe over there?” Peter asks. For the past few minutes, he’s been preoccupied with detaching the release mechanism from its sticky counterpart. Honestly, he’ll be better off scrapping the old shooters for a new pair if he doesn’t want to end up breaking the whole thing.

“Uh—go fish,” Tony replies, and the nanobots before him form a gauntlet over his left hand. “What do you say—should I make this puppy look like the rest?” He holds up his metal arm, wiggling around the bionic fingers while he compares it to his suit’s gauntlet.

Peter presses a two fingers on his lip. “That’d actually be kinda sick,” he says. “You could make a whole bunch of arms for different moods.”

“ _Ah!_ ” Tony points at Peter and grins. “Genius, kid, you’ve got yourself a promotion.”

“I’ve also got myself a full bladder and a hankering for Ritz crackers,” Peter mumbles.

Tony’s nanobots trickle back down into the arc reactor that’s sitting on a workbench. “No Ritz. We’ve got Classic Rounds, though.”

“Classic Rounds?”

“Better than the name brand, I’m tellin’ ya.”

Peter sets down his tools and starts toward the door. “I don’t know if I trust your opinion,” he jokes with a laugh. “I’ll be right back.”

Tony briefly acts offended before his expression relaxes. “Okay. If you bring me back some Classic Rounds, I’ll give you a dime.”

“Oh, yeah.” Sarcasm seeps through Peter’s tone. “I love child labor.”

He shuts the workshop door behind him, allowing the music of Billy Joel to fade into the insulation in the walls as he walks away. There’s a smile on Peter’s face that won’t go away, simply because it feels like old times again. The compound is gone, the Avengers are gone, but the dynamic that he and Tony had never lost its spark. All it took was the flick of a switch for it to ignite again.

After washing his hands with the new lavender soap Pepper bought, Peter gives himself an affirmative glance and a smile in the mirror before drying his hands.

The Classic Round crackers, as Tony calls them, are hidden away at the back of their well-stocked pantry. Peter can only recognize a portion of the foods, and he wants to try them all, but his growling stomach calls for Classic Rounds and them only. He sets the box on the kitchen counter and fills two glasses of water for him and Tony. On his way back to the workshop, he nestles the crackers beneath his arm, but he stops when a new drawing from Morgan catches his eyes.

He smiles. It’s a family portrait. Pepper, Tony, Peter, and Morgan. All holding hands. He wishes he could frame it.

When Peter walks back into the workshop, his smile fades. Tony has his phone flat against a table, a hologram with a paused video flickering above it. His eyes are narrowed, and his hand is nestled just under his chin while he swipes the air to reveal another paused video.

“Whatcha doin’, Mister Stark?” Peter asks, placing the glass of water and Classic Rounds down carefully in front of his mentor.

“Not sure,” Tony hums, swiping to another video. There are timestamps at the bottom of each. “Wanted to find out a little bit more about that AI of yours, so I’ve been looking through her files and programming. Stumbled upon something called the Baby Monitor Protocol? Is that—what the hell is that?”

“You put that in my suit,” Peter answers and folds his arms over his chest. “To—uh, to record everything I see. All that jazz. It’s actually handy for me sometimes.”

Tony nods, and for a brief moment, he laughs. “Baby monitor,” he mumbles to himself. “I’m hilarious. What were you doing here?” He sticks his finger through the hologram, and the only thing in the image is an up-close screencap of a sandwich. The logged data was not too long ago.

Peter’s cheek flush. “I-I was really hungry that day,” he sputters. “The sandwich smelled really good.”

With another laugh, Tony whispers, “yeah, you’re definitely my kid,” as he carries on with swiping through the monitored recordings. He stops on one that is completely black. “Is that supposed to be all dark?”

“Uh, no.”

“What were you doin’?”

Peter shrugs. “No idea.” The timestamp is from some time in January. “It’s—It’s probably nothing, actually. I might’ve fallen asleep with my mask on again. That happens sometimes, so, yeah. You’ll probably just hear me snoring. It’s nothing.”

Nevertheless, Tony begins the recording anyway, and Peter feels a bit nervous. He doesn’t think Tony will hear anything he’s not supposed to, but Peter remembers that month vaguely. It was full of school work, new AcaDeca topics, and one terrifying voicemail that used to give him chills when he listened to it.

A few seconds into the video, Peter can hear his voice say, _“Hey—uh, Karen? I can’t sleep, and I was just wonderin’ if you could maybe enhance the voice a bit more? Maybe twenty-five-percent?”_

_“What would you like me to enhance, Peter?”_ Karen asks him, and Peter, the one not in the video, feels his body stiffen.

_“The voicemail.”_

Tony raises an eyebrow.

In the recording, the AI replies with, _“I’ll do my best.”_

“Voicemail?” Tony asks with a slight smile.

Peter can’t smile back. He can’t say anything either.

A few seconds later, loud static comes through. Tony reacts to the harsh sound, meanwhile, Peter braces himself for what comes next. He’s bracing him for the conversation he’s going to have.

Peter keeps an eye on Tony from the corner of his eye as his own voice echoes around the workshop. It comes from the voicemail in the recording, and while Peter can hear his own name shouted loud and clear, he wonders if Tony can, too. He wonders, once the video is paused, if Tony will recognize the source.

The hologram shrinks back into the phone on the table.

Tony’s knit together. His lips pull and twist into a frown, and he looks over at Peter as if he’s asking for help. “What the hell was that?” he whispers, voice hard like stone, but it trembles at the end.

“I was just listening to an old voicemail,” Peter replies with a nervous laugh and an all-too innocent smile. “That’s all.”

“Pete.”

“Uh-huh?”

“You gotta do more explaining than that.”

He nods, feeling the nerves bundle in his chest as he tries to breathe them out from his lungs. It’s just a voicemail, a stupid voicemail that doesn’t even matter anymore. But it kind of _does._ It led Peter here, to this moment, and it’s representative of whatever Tony endured when he was gone. It’s a sour reminder, but it’s important.

“I got it in like, January,” Peter begins, mumbling and taking a seat back in his stool across the table. “This shitty voicemail from an unknown caller, and I could hardly hear anything the person was saying. It sounded like they were saying my name, but for a while, that’s really all I knew.”

“Is it supposed to sound like me?” Tony asks. “Was it like a prank call or something? It kinda sounded like me.”

Peter exhales and looks at his hands. “It is you, Mister Stark. I always thought it was you, but at the time, I didn’t even know you were alive. You were supposed to be—”

“Dead, yeah,” Tony says sharply. He bites his lip. “Got that.”

“In a way,” Peter continues, sighing, “it helped me figure out that you were alive. I-I couldn’t get it to stop replaying in my head. It sounded so much like you, so I ran all these tests. I checked for keywords. I couldn’t give up until I knew who it was from and _where_ it came from. I never really knew until I saw the security footage.”

“Security footage?”

“From where they kept you,” Peter says. “H.A.M.M.E.R.”

Tony lowers his head.

“I think they were gonna wipe your memory,” Peter mumbles, scratching at the back of his head so he can keep his hands busy, “after they brought you back. Dunno what they did, but—yeah. You grabbed some doctor’s phone a-and you called me. You called _me_. But all I got was that shitty voicemail. I didn’t know what you had actually said for months.”

Tony’s jaw clenches, and he nods. “What _did_ I say?” With the way he speaks, his voice is void of emotion—like he’s pretending not to care. But his expression says more.

“You were screaming my name,” Peter says. “Told me where you were. You thought it was only S.H.I.E.L.D.; I think you might’ve known that you were brought back. I think you thought they were the ones responsible. Then you asked if I could hear you.”

Tony nods again, but it’s much slower, and he looks to be fighting with his own thoughts.

Peter wants to know what those thoughts are.

“I called you?” Tony says aloud, but it comes out as a question. He paces a few steps. “Not Pepper? Rhodey?”

“Yeah, I was confused, too.”

“I’m not.”

Peter lifts a brow. “You’re not?”

“No,” Tony says, shrugging “Not really. Clearly, I had a lot of faith in you. Makes sense to me. I trust you with all this crap and gear. I trust you to make me laugh, to bring me Classic Rounds, to watch my daughter. Although the daughter thing should go first. I’ve probably always trusted you, kid. Makes sense that I would want you to come save me when I need it most. I’m not confused by it at all.”

Peter’s heart stammers in his chest, and he can’t tell if it’s due to his nerves or if he’s just so overwhelmed by the words he’s hearing.

“You’d trust me to save your life?” he asks quietly.

Tony chuckles. He doesn’t quite understand the impact of the conversation. “Yeah. Would you trust me to save yours?”

It’s not a hard question for Peter to answer, but he always figured his mentor knew what the answer was anyway. Sometimes Peter forgets that their entire past together is up in the air when it comes to Tony remembering it. Even then, Tony still trusts him. Tony still has faith in Peter, no matter if he feels like he knows him or not.

Peter smiles. “You already have, Mister Stark. Too many times.”

“Is there really such thing as saving one’s life too many times?”

“There is when you have a reputation to uphold,” Peter mutters as he returns back to work on his faulty web-shooters. Yeah, he’s just gonna make an entirely new pair. He deserves it. “Can you pass me some Classic Rounds?”

“Hm, no. Adult cookies.”

“Ha-ha. Very funny.” Peter clasps a web fluid cartridge into one of the shooters and fires at the box of crackers. It flies back right into his hands.

Tony blinks. “I forgot you could do that.”

Peter smirks and aims the web-shooter at Tony’s hand. It comfortably rests on the table when Peter’s webbing envelopes it. Tony looks up at him like he just murdered his alpaca right in front of him.

“I take it back,” he says. “You can save your own ass next time you’re dropped into a lake.”

“You weren’t even in the suit!”

“You watch your tone with me, buckaroo, or no Spider-Man-ing for a week.”

Peter tries to fake a pout, but he can’t. He’s laughing too much. He’s so happy. “Buckaroo? Where’d you get that one? Insults for Dummies?”

Tony is trying not to laugh, too. He’s doing a better job at hiding it than Peter.

“Parker,” he says. “You’re grounded.”

“You _love_ me.”

“You know I do.”


End file.
